By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening sharply higher Tuesday, bouncing back from the previous session’s major selloff, ahead of the start of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy-setting meeting.
At 7:05 AM ET (1105 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 300 points, or 0.9%, S&P 500 Futures traded 35 points, or 0.9%, higher, while Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 120 points, or 0.8%.
The main equity indices sold off aggressively Monday, weighed by concerns about contagion from Chinese property giant China Evergrande Group's (HK:3333) debt crisis, political difficulties surrounding the passing of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda and lingering Covid-19 issues - not to mention the Fed meeting.
The U.S. central bank’s policy-setting meeting starts later Tuesday, and markets will be looking for more information about plans for reining in its pandemic-era bond-buying program, the quarterly economic forecasts and the so-called dot plot, which the Fed uses to signal its outlook for the path of interest rates.
“ It is quite a close call, but we do not expect the Median Dot Plot for the first rate hike to shift from 2023 to 2022,” said analysts at ING, in a note.
In corporate news, Uber (NYSE:UBER) will be in the spotlight after a company executive said it will make an adjusted profit for the first time in the third quarter, an improvement on its previous guidance.
Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) said its Covid-19 booster shot is 94% effective when administered two months after the first dose, while there will also be earnings from the likes of FedEx (NYSE:FDX), Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) and AutoZone (NYSE:AZO).
Building permits and housing starts data for August are the only economic data of note, both due at 8:30 AM ET.
Crude prices also rebounded Tuesday, advancing after days of losses after indications that disruptions to crude output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico will last into next year.
Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa), the biggest oil producer in the region, said Monday that production from two of its largest fields there will not resume until the first quarter of 2022 given the damage caused by Hurricane Ida in late August.
Investors will now focus on crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute later in the session for more information.
By 7:05 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 1.1% higher at $70.91 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.9% to $74.59. Both contracts slumped around 2% last session.
Additionally, gold futures traded 0.2% higher at $1,766.85/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.1735.