U.S. stock futures were pointing to a negative open on Thursday. Investors will be watching for the fallout from Hurricane Milton and are awaiting the release of U.S. inflation data.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 55 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures were also falling 0.2%, as were futures tied to Nasdaq 100 futures were also dropping 0.2%.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note stood at 4.075% early on Thursday, broadly flat from the previous day.
Federal Reserve officials debated whether to lower interest rates by a quarter or half of a percentage point last month, according to the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s Sept. 17-18 meeting, which were published on Wednesday afternoon.
“Reading through the September FOMC minutes, there seemed no sense of urgency from the Fed to get rates lower–even though it did cut by 50 basis points. More a sense that the inflation scare was over, unemployment was drifting higher and a risk management approach required a recalibration of policy,” wrote ING analyst Chris Turner in a research note.
Attention now turns to inflation data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the September consumer-price index reading at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Economists surveyed by FactSet expect that inflation eased for a sixth consecutive month to 2.3% year over year in September, a cooldown from the 2.5% rate recorded in August.
Elsewhere, Chinese markets largely stabilized after a roller-coaster ride in recent days as traders have rushed in and out of the domestic stocks in anticipation of fiscal stimulus from Beijing. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.4% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 3.0%.