By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening higher Wednesday, attempting to recover from a rocky start to the new year ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's December meeting.
At 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 90 points, or 0.3%, S&P 500 Futures traded 13 points, or 0.3% higher, and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 55 points, or 0.5%.
The three main indices closed lower Tuesday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average ending down 10.9 points, the broad-based S&P 500 falling 0.4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ending 0.8% lower, weighed by hefty losses to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares.
However, the tone is more positive Wednesday, helped by gains in Europe after French inflation data and services data throughout the Eurozone suggested that the region’s economic slowdown may not turn out to be as bad this year as originally predicted.
Back in the U.S., investors will focus on the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting at 14:00 ET (19:00 GMT).
The U.S. central bank hiked by 50 basis points at this meeting, and the minutes could help shed light on what policymakers are thinking over future increases heading into the first meeting of the year in February.
Additionally, the JOLTs report on job openings for November, at 10:00 ET, is expected to show 10 million openings, a downtick from the prior month, ahead of Friday’s widely-watched monthly jobs report.
The Fed has been closely scrutinizing the labor market as it tries to walk a tightrope between taming inflation and not tipping the economy into a recession.
In the corporate sector, Apple is likely to remain in the spotlight Wednesday after the iPhone maker's stock market value shrank sharply on Tuesday, leaving it below $2 trillion for the first time since March 2021.
Oil prices fell Wednesday, continuing the weak start to the new year, on concerns that economic activity will be hit by a global recession and thus weigh on demand in 2023.
This followed comments by the head of the International Monetary Fund, who warned that much of the global economy would see a tough year in 2023 as the main engines of global growth - the United States, Europe, and China - are all experiencing weakening activity.
The industry group American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release weekly data on U.S. crude inventories later in the session, a day later than usual following Monday’s holiday.
By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 2.9% lower at $74.67 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 3% to $79.66. Both contracts fell over 4% on Tuesday.
Additionally, gold futures rose 1% to $1,864.70/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.5% higher at 1.0603.