By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening mixed Wednesday, as investors digest earnings from mega-cap tech companies ahead of the latest Federal Reserve meeting and a key speech from President Joe Biden.
At 7:05 AM ET (1205 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 40 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded 4 points, or 0.1%, higher, while Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 15 points, or 0.1%.
Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) released impressive first-quarter earnings after the close Tuesday, sending its stock up over 5% premarket, as the recovering economy and growing use of online services combined to accelerate its advertising and cloud businesses. It also announced a $50 billion share buyback.
By contrast, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock traded around 2% lower even after the software giant offered up its largest revenue growth since 2018, with investors seeking even more to justify the company’s sky-high valuation.
Earnings from Big Tech, which have been behind a lot of the hefty gains that the major stock indices have registered in the last year, continue Wednesday, with both Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) due to release numbers after the close.
Boeing (NYSE:BA), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), Ford (NYSE:F), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM) are among the other major corporate earnings scheduled for Wednesday.
Aside from earnings, it’s Fed decision day.
The U.S. central bank is not expected to change its ultra-easy monetary policies, with the decision due at 2 PM ET (1900 GMT). A lot of the focus will be comments from Chairman Jerome Powell, who has been consistent of late in indicating that policymakers won't be withdrawing support anytime soon.
Also of interest will be a speech by President Joe Biden before a joint session of Congress, where he is expected to call on U.S. policymakers to pass a $1.8 trillion package aimed toward children and families and the tax increases needed to pay for it.
Oil prices traded marginally higher Wednesday, helped by OPEC+, a group of top producers, deciding to move forward with a gradual output increase as planned, indicating confidence in the growing recovery of global oil demand despite the Covid-19 crisis in India, the world's third-largest importer.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.4% higher at $63.17 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.3% to $66.08.
These gains occurred even after the American Petroleum Institute detailed that U.S. crude stockpiles rose by over 4.3 million barrels last week. Investors now await crude oil supply data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration later Wednesday.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.8% to $1,765.25/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.2% lower at 1.2069.