Stock Futures Creep Lower as Wall Street Awaits Clarity From the Fed

New York (Feb 22)  Stock futures crept lower on Wednesday morning as investors awaited more clarity on interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.16%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.06%, and Nasdaq futures declined 0.11%.

Wall Street returned from the long holiday weekend on Tuesday with enough energy to push stocks to new records for their second session in a row. The Dow has notched records for the past eight sessions.

The central bank will release minutes from its Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting on Wednesday afternoon. The release will likely confirm a recent switch in rhetoric among Fed members in signaling that the U.S. economy is heating up and that it must act soon. The minutes could also signal the likelihood of a move on interest rates in March.

"The Fed meets next in March, and if three rate hikes are to happen this year, as the Fed has signaled they may, then the March meeting must certainly be considered 'live'," said David Joy, Ameriprise chief market strategist, in a note. "If the March meeting is not considered 'live' that implies the possibility of three rate hikes being squeezed into the final seven months of the year, something the Fed would likely hope to avoid for fear of creating the impression that in its own mind it had fallen behind the inflation curve."

The earnings season barrels on this week with a particular focus on the retail sector. Walmart (WMT) , Macy's (M) , and Home Depot (HD) each reported better-than-expected profit on Tuesday, and Gap (GPS) , J.C. Penney (JCP) , and Foot Locker (FL) are set to report later in the week. More than four-fifths of S&P 500 companies have reported their earnings so far this season with 66% of those exceeding earnings estimates and 53% surpassing sales consensus.

Source: TheStreet