Stock futures fell slightly on Wednesday, pointing to another day of declines for the Dow Jones Industrial average after it snapped a 5-day winning streak on Tuesday.
Dow futures shed 85 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures lost 0.1% and Nasdaq 100-futures fell slightly.
The Federal Reserve publishes its meeting minutes from its July meeting at 2 p.m. ET. Markets participants will be looking for clues about when the central bank could start dialing back its bond buying program. Since that meeting, there’s been growing support within the Fed to announce a tapering in September and then begin it in October.
The 10-year Treasury yield was about flat around 1.27% on Wednesday.
Shares of Lowe’s gained slightly in premarket trading after earnings topped expectations. The stock fell more than 5% Tuesday after disappointing same-store sales results.
On Tuesday, the major averages dipped following a decline in July retail sales. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 282 points, dragged down by a 4.3% drop in Home Depot’s stock. The average had its first negative day in 5.
The S&P 500 also slipped 0.7% for its worst day since July 19. The Nasdaq Composite was the relative underperformer, dropping 0.9% as Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google-parent Alphabet all closed lower.
“The stock market is way overdue for a correction, Covid cases continue to spike higher darkening economic reopenings, consumer data shockingly has collapsed recently — including consumer confidence last Friday and retail sales and homebuilders’ sentiment [Tuesday] — several stocks have stopped reacting positively to good earnings, inflation reports remain hot, and Federal Reserve taper talk is everywhere,” Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, said.
The Census Bureau said Tuesday that retail sales fell 1.1% in June, driven largely by a drop in car sales. Economists expected retail sales to fall by 0.3% in July, compared to a revised 0.7% gain in June, according to Dow Jones consensus forecast. Excluding autos, sales were down 0.4% compared to estimates of a 0.2% slowdown.
The small cap benchmark Russell 2000 dropped 1.2% on Tuesday.
Cisco Systems and Nvidia report after the bell.
Stock trading app Robinhood releases its first earnings report as a public company on Wednesday after the bell.
