Wall Street set for muted open as markets await Fed verdict; Apple, Nvidia falter

USA Today

29-01-2025

Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta
Reuters
Wall Street's main indexes were on track for a subdued open on Wednesday, as losses in tech heavyweights Apple and Nvidia kept broader gains in check and investor attention turned to the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision, due later in the day.
Markets widely expect the central bank to hold its lending rate steady in its decision, expected at 2 p.m. ET.
"Without clarity on the macro impact of a range of government policies, primarily tariffs, but also on tax policy and the labor market impact of immigration policy, we think it's fair to expect limited guidance from the Fed today," Goldman Sachs economists said in a note.
Meanwhile, shares of semiconductor firms and related equipment makers advanced in premarket trading after Dutch firm ASML ASML.AS reported fourth-quarter bookings of 7.09 billion euros ($7.39 billion), a number far exceeding expectations.
KLA Corp KLAC.Orose 2.1%, Applied Materials AMAT.Owas up 2.7%, Lam Research LRCX.Ogained 2.8% and Micron Technology MU.Oadded 1.5%.
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Nvidia NVDA.O dropped 2% after gaining close to 9% on Tuesday. Its shares were hammered on Monday, after Chinese startup DeepSeek launched AI models it said were cost-effective and ran on less advanced chips.
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Apple AAPL.O shed 1.8% after brokerage Oppenheimer downgraded its rating to "perform" from "outperform". The iPhone maker is scheduled to report quarterly earnings later this week.
The Nasdaq .IXIC jumped 2% in the last session, while the S&P 500 .SPX rose close to 1% as Nvidia NVDA.O and other artificial intelligence-linked tech shares recovered somewhat from the steep losses suffered earlier in the week.
Markets have been on edge due to worries around U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs, which could exacerbate inflationary pressures and slow rate cuts.
Trump still plans to make good on his promise to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Saturday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
Point72 Asset Management's founder Steven Cohen said he expects the stock market to reach a peak soon, amid inflationary pressures and uncertainties around Trump's policies on tariffs and immigration.
The December reading of the personal consumption expenditures price index, a crucial metric in assessing the inflation trajectory, is due on Friday.
At 8:27 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were down 71 points, or 0.16%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were down 12.25 points, or 0.2%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 8 points, or 0.04%.
Among earnings, T-Mobile TMUS.O added 6.3% after the company forecast stronger-than-expected annual subscriber growth driven by increased demand for its affordable premium 5G plans.
Danaher DHR.Nshed 5.7% after the life sciences company missed estimates for fourth-quarter profit, due to soft demand for tools and services used in drug development by its biotech and pharmaceutical clients.
Earnings from Magnificent 7 stocks Microsoft MSFT.O, Facebook-parent Meta META.O and Tesla TSLA.O are expected after markets close.
Cybersecurity and cloud services company F5 FFIV.O jumped 13.5% after forecasting second-quarter revenue above estimates and posting a first-quarter revenue beat.
Chipmaker Qorvo QRVO.O lost 3.7% after it reported lower third-quarter revenue.
($1 = 0.9628 euros)
Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Arun Koyyur and Pooja Desai