U.S. equity futures edged lower Wednesday, while Treasury bond yields and the dollar held steady, as investors looked to a key January inflation report while bracing for another round of tariff announcements from President Donald Trump.
Stocks ended mixed on Tuesday, with a notable slump for Tesla (TSLA) pulling the Nasdaq into the red by the close of trading while the Dow and the S&P 500 notched modest gains following an uneventful appearance from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in front of the Senate Banking Committee.
Powell, who faces another round of questions from the House Financial Services Committee later this morning, echoed the Fed’s recent messaging on growth, inflation and the labor market and repeated his view that the central bank is in “no hurry” to lower its benchmark borrowing rate.
“The economy is strong, growing 2.5% last year. The labor market is also very solid. Unemployment at 4% is quite a low level. Inflation last year was 2.6% for the year,” Powell told lawmakers.
“So we’re in a pretty good place with this economy. We want to make more progress on inflation, and we think our policy rate is in a good place. We don’t see any reason to be in a hurry to reduce it further,” he added.
Questions in today’s session, however, could be more pointed as Powell will appear following a key January inflation reading at 8:30 am Eastern time, which is expected to show modest easing in core price pressures and little change in the headline reading.
