By Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan
(Reuters) -Futures tracking Wall Street’s main stock indexes were marginally higher on Friday after U.S. Treasury yields took a breather following a sharp rise in the last session, setting the indexes up for weekly advances.
Wall Street was set to end slightly higher this week in spite of hotter-than-expected consumer prices and producer prices data pointing to sticky inflation, which had sent the yield on the 10-year note to a two-week high.
Higher inflation adds pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates elevated, pushing traders to rein in bets of a June rate cut to 60% from 73% last week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
All eyes are now on the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week for hints on the timing of the central bank’s rate-easing cycle.
“At the Fed, the big question next week is what they’ll signal in their new dot plot, and whether the median dot still points towards three cuts for 2024, as happened in December,” Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank’s global head of economics and thematic research, said in a note.
Friday also marked the simultaneous expiry of quarterly derivatives contracts tied to stocks, index options and futures, also known as “triple witching”.
At 7:00 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 58 points, or 0.15%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 9.75 points, or 0.19%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 33.75 points, or 0.18%.
Semiconductor stocks fell in the previous session and were on track to snap their three-week winning streak as investors took profits. The global GTC developer conference from March 18 to 21 will be closely watched for AI-related announcements.
Most megacap shares crept up in premarket trading, with Tesla climbing 1.0% after two sessions of more than 4% losses each.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals jumped 24.3% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug for a fatty liver disease known as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.
Micron Technology rose 3.0% after brokerage Citi raised its price target on the company to $150, the highest on Wall Street for the chipmaker, according to LSEG data.
Adobe shed 11.2% after it forecast second-quarter revenue below analysts’ estimates, following stiff competition and weak demand for its AI-integrated photography, illustration and video.
Ulta Beauty slid 6.3% after forecasting full-year profit below Wall Street estimates, as elevated supply-chain costs and increased promotions hurt its margins.
Crypto stocks such as MicroStrategy, Marathon Digital and Coinbase Global eased between 5.1% and 5.5% as bitcoin fell.
(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)