Stock futures fall as Wall Street awaits the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge: Live updates

Stock futures fell as Wall Street weighed the latest earnings results and looked ahead to the Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 78 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures edged down 0.16% and 0.17%, respectively.

Salesforce slipped 1% on weak revenue guidance, while Snowflake shed 20% after announcing the retirement of its CEO and sharing disappointing product revenue guidance. Okta popped 23% on strong results.

All the major averages declined during regular trading. The 30-stock Dow lost 0.06% and fell for a third consecutive session, while the S&P 500 inched down 0.17%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.55%.

Wall Street anxiously awaits Thursday’s personal consumer expenditures reading for January. Economists are bracing for a 0.3% monthly gain and a 2.4% year-over-year move. A higher-than-expected print could dent equities and signal that recent hot consumer price index and producer price index releases were on trend.  

“Investors have already backtracked dramatically from previous hopes for early rate cuts, and a disappointing PCE report could reinforce “higher for longer” concerns regarding Treasury yields,” said Joe Mazzola, Charles Schwab’s director of trading and education.

Thursday’s session caps off February trading and another positive month for the three major averages, despite a string of declines raising questions around the sustainability of the AI-driven rally. The Nasdaq is leading the pack with a 5.2% gain. The S&P 500 has jumped 4.6%, while the Dow has added 2.1%. This would mark the Dow’s first four-month winning streak since May 2021.

The back end of earnings season continues Thursday with results from Best Buy, Hewlett Packard Enterprises and Bath & Body Works.

Other key economic figures are due out, including personal income data for January, Chicago purchasing managers index data for February and the pending home sales index for January. New York Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO John Williams is also slated to moderate a discussion in the evening.