Investing.com - Wall Street stock futures pointed to a flat open on Friday as investors maintained a holding pattern ahead of a vote on healthcare and waited for economic data and further hints from the Federal Reserve (Fed) on future policy moves.
The blue-chip Dow futures inched up 15, or 0.07%, by 7:03AM ET (11:03GMT), the S&P 500 futures was unchanged, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures edged forward 7 points, or 0.14%.
Market players kept their attention focused on Washington Friday with the House of Representatives expected to vote on the healthcare plan, after U.S. President Donald Trump failed to get enough support to pass the bill and the vote originally scheduled for Thursday was delayed.
Reports said that Trump was done with negotiations and had told the House that they must vote on the bill or be left with Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Investors widely see the Trump administration's struggles to push through the healthcare overhaul as a sign he may also face setbacks delivering on the promises for tax cuts, regulatory reform and infrastructure spending.
Strategists have been cautioning for weeks that markets are pricing in a scenario where nothing goes wrong with Trump's agenda.
Market players were also focusing attention on the Fed’s plans to normalize its balance sheet.
Recent comments from Fed officials had indicated their desire to announce how and when they will start to remove the accommodation provided by the asset purchase program.
Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan said after the market close Thursday that policymakers should be moving “deliberately but patiently” towards the removal of accommodation in general. While also noting that three hikes remained a reasonable baseline for this year, Kaplan insisted on the importance of the Fed announcing its plans for reducing the balance sheet.
“We’re approaching a period where we’ll have made some further progress and we’ll be able to make an announcement on our plans for the balance sheet,” he said, adding that he would argue for allowing both Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to run off.
Kaplan’s remarks followed comments from Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari that he would like to publish the plan for the balance sheet reduction “as soon as possible”.
Friday’s session will see a slew of appearances throughout the day, including Chicago Fed chief Charles Evans, SF Fed president John Williams, head of the St. Louis Fed James Bullard and NY Fed chief William Dudley.
Also ahead on the calendar, market players will focus on durable goods orders for February at 8:30AM ET (13:30GMT) with expectations for a 1.2% increase in what would be a second sign of upbeat company sentiment for the start of 2017.
Investors will also check out private sector business activity with the release of IHS Markit’s preliminary purchasing managers’ index for March covering both the manufacturing and service sectors. The report will be released at 9:45AM ET (13:45GMT).
Oil recovered some lost territory on Friday, but was still on track for weekly losses of nearly 3% in what would be its third consecutive weekly decline as investors showed concern over record U.S. crude stockpiles and waited for the technical committee meeting this weekend that will analyze compliance by major oil producers on agreed production cuts. Ministers were also expected to discuss the possibility of an extension of the deal from June.
Market players also looked ahead to weekly data on U.S. drilling activity from Baker Hughes out later on Friday.
Last week the oil services provider said that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 14 to 631, the ninth weekly increase in a row.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.55% to $47.96 by 7:04AM ET (11:04GMT), while Brent oil rose 0.42% to $50.77.
Elsewhere, European stocks traded lower despite the fact that business growth in the euro zone jumped to nearly a six-year high. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 was down 0.41% at 7:07AM ET (11:07GMT), while Germany’s DAX lost 0.16% and London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.12%.
Earlier, Asian equities closed with gains with Japan's Nikkei up 0.9% and Chinese stocks pocketing gains of 0.8%.