(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Wednesday ahead of earnings from U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase, which will kick off the first-quarter earnings season against the backdrop of surging inflation.
JPMorgan Chase & Co slipped 0.4% in premarket trading. Investors will be looking for commentary on the outlook for consumer spending and borrowing, net interest income, market volatility and M&A and IPO pipelines.
Quarterly results from Wall Street banks are expected to show a sharp decline in investment banking revenue and first-quarter earnings overall due to companies pausing deals amid choppy equity markets.
Nevertheless, analysts and executives are expecting trading to be a surprise bright spot for banks in the first quarter, after clients rejigged portfolios in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and interest rate hikes.
Other big banks Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, which report later this week and next, rose between 0.2% and 0.3%.
BlackRock Inc inched up 0.4% after posting a nearly 22% rise in first-quarter profit as the world’s largest asset manager benefited from investors pouring more money into its various funds.
At 06:23 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 106 points, or 0.31%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 14.75 points, or 0.34%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 58.5 points, or 0.42%.
Wall Street reversed earlier gains on Tuesday as Treasury yields rebounded on impending monetary tightening from the Federal Reserve, putting pressure once again on growth stocks.
Investors will be focusing on producer price data at 8:30 a.m. ET, expected to have risen 10.6% in the 12 months through March after a 10% gain in February.
Data on Tuesday showed consumer prices surged to a four-decade high in March, but underlying inflation pressures showed some signs of moderation, still putting the Fed on track for a 50 basis point rate hike in May.
(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
