Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), July 26, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stock futures fell Tuesday as Wall Street prepared for the start of the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting in September.
Futures contracts linked to Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 66 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 Futures Contracts slipped 0.2%, while Nasdaq 100 Futures slipped 0.3%.
The main averages come out of a largely flat session, with the S&P500 up 0.07%. THE Nasdaq Composite achieved a gain of 0.01%, while the 30 stocks Dow slightly increased by 0.02%, or 6.06 points.
“The market as a whole seems a little more choppy than what we saw in the first nine months of this year,” Ankur Crawford, a portfolio manager in Algiers, said Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “China, which was supposed to be functioning and coming out of Covid…the American consumer is showing signs of a little more pressure. So we’re heading into more choppy markets, and it basically comes down to technology.”
The Fed is not expected to raise rates this week, with traders assessing a 99% chance that the central bank will skip a hike, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, a gauge of federal funds futures prices. Traders estimate the probability of a rise in November at only 29% as of Tuesday morning.
Six of the S&P’s 11 major sectors ended Monday’s session on a positive note, led by energy, with a gain of 0.7%. Consumer discretionary was the worst performing sector, down around 1%.
Wall Street will analyze a small batch of economic data on Tuesday, with preliminary building permits for August and housing starts expected before the bell. Automatic zone is expected to release its results before the bell.
