Wall Street is eyeing a softer start to Tuesday’s trade, with late gains across many Asian indices failing to provide anything in the way of confidence.
Analyst downgrades on some heavyweight US stocks yesterday just as earnings season gets underway combined with fresh disappointment in the way of economic data is doing little to lift the mood amongst US equity traders. With JOLTs job openings looking to be the stand out on today’s economic calendar, and with this number tipped to show a meaningful downturn in the level of advertised vacancies, the pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to intervene.
Tomorrow’s FOMC meeting minutes have the potential to provide some further clues here, with any clues that quantitative tightening will soon come to an end possibly being sufficient to lend some support to stocks. The stand-off between the White House and the Fed does however continue unabated and further intervention here may unnerve the market in general. With the risk of further corporate downgrades and no progress in those US-China trade talks either, the temptation may well be for many to remain on the back foot.
Ahead of the open we’re calling the Dow down 53 at 26288 and the S&P 500 down 6 at 2890.