Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a flat to lower open Tuesday as market players opted to take a pause with stocks ahead of what could be key references from the Federal Reserve (Fed) on the timing of further removal of accommodative policy, eyed the start of Amazon’s big sales celebration and watched as Snap pulled further away from it’s the price of its initial public offering (IPO).
The blue-chip Dow futures slipped 18 points, or 0.08%, at 7:15AM ET (11:15GMT), the S&P 500 futures gave up 3 points, or 0.10%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 5 points, or 0.09%.
Investors looked hesitant to place any big bets on U.S. equities ahead of Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Janet Yellen’s testimony to Congress on Wednesday as they search for clues on the path for further interest rate hikes and balance sheet normalization at the U.S. central bank.
Earlier Tuesday, San Francisco Fed president John Williams reiterated his stance that they would move forward with more tightening this year.
Fed governor Lael Brainard and Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari were also scheduled to speak later on Tuesday.
The U.S. will also have a light schedule for economic data on Tuesday with the focus on the job vacancies revealed in the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover survey (JOLTS) at 10:00AM ET (16:00GMT).
In the past, Yellen has mentioned the report when taking stock of the state of the U.S. labor market.
On the company front, Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) was trading down 3% in pre-market trade Tuesday after closing below its IPO price of $17 for the first time since its debut, having previously soared around 40% above its initial price.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares drifted higher in pre-market trade, following up on gains of near 2% the prior session, as the world's largest online retailer's own version of Black Friday kicked off.
Prime Day, a 30-hour sale which started at 9:00PM ET Monday (1:00GMT Tuesday), is Amazon's biggest marketing push of the year, with deals to draw new subscribers to its Prime shopping club.
Ahead of what will considered the unofficial kick off of the second quarter earnings season at the end of the week with JP Morgan’s results, Pepsico (NYSE:PEP) reported numbers Tuesday that beat on both the top and the bottom line. Still, the better-than-expected results only translated to gains of 0.2% in pre-market trade.
Meanwhile, oil futures reversed overnight gains to trade lower as investors continued to show concern over the global supply glut.
News reports out Tuesday suggested that Iranian production was planned to rise by 0.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in just five years, while Saudia Arabia was said to tell OPEC that its own production had reached 10.07 million in June.
Market participants also looked ahead to weekly data from the U.S. on stockpiles of crude and refined products.
Industry group the American Petroleum Institute is due to release its weekly report at 4:30PM ET (20;30GMT) later on Tuesday. Official data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday, amid forecasts for an oil-stock drop of around 3.2 million barrels.
U.S. crude futures fell 1.08% to $43.92 by 7:19AM ET (11:19GMT), while Brent oil lost 1.07% to $46.38.