MW: U.S. stock futures dip ahead of Obama address, FOMC meeting
By Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock market futures were pointing lower on Wednesday as markets awaited results of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and a key address from President Barack Obama later.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 8 points to 10,130, while those for the S&P 500 fell 0.4 points to 1,086.80. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 fell 1.25 points to 1,795.25.
A late swoon erased a day-long stock rally Tuesday, highlighting investors' lingering jitters about the several big economic announcements due over the next few days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2.97 points to 10,194.07, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3% and the S&P 500 fell 0.4%.
Wall Street is facing up to some major events from Washington this week, and Wednesday will feature a couple of those.
After new-home sales for December is released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, focus will turn to the FOMC meeting, with a decision on rates due at 2:15 p.m.
At 9 p.m., President Obama will deliver the annual State of the Union address, which is garnering more than the usual share of attention for such a speech, as markets look for details on his proposal to restrict bank's speculative trading.
"It should be very interesting to see if the President maintains his aggressive rhetoric of last week with regards to financial reforms," said Jim Reid, strategist with Deutsche Bank in a note to investors. "Press reports have also suggested that the President might use the event to announce tax break measures for small business owners. It will also be interesting to see whether he uses the event to announce any fiscal policy changes and his plan of attack on reducing the country's deficit."
Wednesday also marks the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where top government and corporate leaders will meet and traders are watching out for potentially more political sound bites from the gathering.
On the corporate front, Apple (AAPL 205.94, +2.87, +1.41%) shares may be in focus, with the company due to launch its new tablet computer at 1 p.m.
Key earnings are on the schedule from Caterpillar, (CAT 55.85, +0.71, +1.29%) , Boeing (BA 57.71, -0.07, -0.12%) and General Dynamics (GD 68.72, +0.86, +1.27%) to name just a few.
Yahoo (YHOO 15.99, +0.13, +0.82%) shares could be in focus after the company swung to a profit in the fourth quarter, while posting a sales decline. Its outlook for the current period lifted Yahoo shares in late trading.
In Europe, stocks were down for a fifth session out of six, with Spanish banking giant BBVA (BBVA 16.73, -0.10, -0.59%) losing ground after reporting a 94% drop in fourth quarter profit as it had to increase provisions for bad loans. Other banks were under pressure as well.
Asia markets suffered another day of declines, with concerns about Chinese bank lending sending Hong Kong and Shanghai shares further south. India and Australia stocks also fell on fears of monetary tightening.
Crude oil futures were down 6 cents to $74.65 a barrel, while gold futures fell $4 to $1,094.30 an ounce.
Global growth concerns served to push the dollar and the yen higher. The euro fell to $1.4077 in recent action.