(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were flat to slightly higher on Tuesday as caution was placed ahead of a set of economic data releases and investors braced for any insight into incoming Trump administration policies.
At 5:42 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 32 points, or 0.07%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 6.5 points, or 0.11% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 20.25 points, or 0.09% .
Top on investors' radars will be the Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey for November and the Institute for Supply Management data on services activity for December, both of which are due at 10am ET.
The key non-farm payrolls figure is also due later in the week and any signs of continued resilience in the economy are likely to push back expectations on the pace of the Federal Reserve's monetary easing cycle this year.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has risen since early December and is trading at 4.6% – close to its highest level since May 2024.
Traders see the central bank taking a dovish stance for the first time this year in June, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool, after the Fed forecast 50 basis points worth of rate cuts in 2025. Minutes of the December meeting are expected the central bank on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, comments are expected from Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin. He and his colleagues have widely warned against the risks of inflation and the need to keep borrowing costs contained for longer as Trump takes over the Oval office later this month.
In the previous session, the benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended short of one-week highs after President-elect Donald Trump denied a report that his team was exploring less aggressive tariff policies, causing uncertainty among market participants. about his plans.
Analysts widely say that if implemented, Trump's campaign promises such as tax cuts, tariffs and liberalized regulation could boost the economy, although it could increase the risk to inflation and slow the pace of the Fed's easing cycle. Furthermore, his tariff plans if acted upon could also trigger a trade war among the country's main partners.
Among premarket movers, Nvidia rose 1.6% on the day after the second-largest listed company in the US revealed new products and partnerships at a major annual technology conference in Las Vegas.
Micron Technology rose 5.4% after Nvidia chief Jensen Huang said the chipmaker is providing memory for the GeForce RTX 50 Blackwell AI-bellwether gaming chip family.
Self-driving technology maker Aurora Innovation jumped 44.4% after announcing a long-term partnership with Nvidia and Germany's Continental to deploy driverless trucks at scale.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)