Futures Pointing To Slightly Subdued Start On Wall Street

Futures indicate a slightly weak start for U.S. stocks Tuesday morning. The focus will be on a slew of quarterly earnings updates, and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting, which gets underway today.

The Dow futures are down marginally, the S&P futures are lower by about 0.1%, and the Nasdaq futures are down 0.16%.

The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rate unchanged tomorrow. The focus will be on the accompanying statement and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference. Investors now expect the Fed to announce a rate cut in September.

Coca-Cola reported first-quarter earnings of $3.18 billion, or $0.74 per share. This compares with $3.11 billion, or $0.72 per share, in last year's first quarter. Adjusted earnings were $3.12 billion or $0.72 per share for the period.

McDonald's Corp's bottom line totaled $1.93 billion, or $2.66 per share in the first quarter, compared with with $1.80 billion, or $2.45 per share, in last year's first quarter.

Eli Lilly And Co. reported first-quarter earnings of $2.24 billion, or $2.48 per share, compared with $1.34 billion, or $1.49 per share in the last year's first quarter. For fiscal 2024, Eli Lilly now projects earnings in a range of $13.05 to $13.55 per share, up from earlier projection of $11.80 to $12.30 per share.

Several other big name companies, including Amazon, Starbucks, AMD and PayPal are scheduled to announce their quarterly earnings today.

Wall Street ended modestly higher on Monday as stocks benefited from the upward momentum seen last week after some upbeat earnings updates from tech firms.

The Dow rose 146.43 points or 0.4% to38389.09, the Nasdaq climbed 55.18 points or 0.4% to 15983.08 and the S&P 500 advanced 16.21 points or 0.3%to 5,116.17.

Shares of Tesla (TSLA) skyrocketed more than 15% after the electric vehicle maker said local Chinese authorities removed restrictions on its cars.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks ended higher on Tuesday, with Chinese markets underperforming after the release of mixed PMI data.

European stocks are a bit subdued in cautious trade ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting. Investors are digesting the latest batch of economic data from the region.

Preliminary flash estimate from Eurostat showed that the euro area economy expanded in the first quarter after two consecutive declines, with gross domestic product growing by more-than-expected 0.3% on quarter following a 0.1% fall each in the fourth and third quarters of 2023.

The German economy also avoided recession in the first quarter, with GDP growing more-than-expected 0.2% sequentially in the first quarter, in contrast to the revised 0.5% decrease in the preceding period.

Meanwhile, headline inflation in the euro area came in at 2.4% in April, matching forecasts. On a monthly basis, inflation was 0.6%.

In commodities, West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures are up $0.41 or 0.5% at $83.04 a barrel. Gold futures are down $32.90 or 1.4% at $2,324.80 an ounce.

In the currency market, the dollar is trading at 1.0725 against the Euro, little changed from Monday's close. Against the Japanese currency, the dollar is up, fetching 156.93 yen a unit.

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