Investing.com - U.S. futures pointed to a flat open on Thursday as investors shifted attention to the latest inflation reading and its impact on the Federal Reserve’s plans to gradually tighten rates this year.
The blue-chip Dow futures slipped 2 points, or 0.01%, by 6:27AM ET (10:27GMT), the S&P 500 futures edged forward 3 points, or 0.09%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 10 points, or 0.14%
The Commerce Department will publish April inflation figures at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT) Thursday. Market analysts expect consumer prices to post a gain of 0.3%, snapping back from March's 0.1% decline, while core inflation is forecast to inch up 0.2%, the same as its rise a month earlier.
On a yearly base, core CPI is projected to climb 2.2%, a tad faster than the 2.1% gain recorded in the preceding month. Core prices are viewed by the Fed as a better gauge of longer-term inflationary pressure because they exclude the volatile food and energy categories.
Rising prices would be a catalyst to push the U.S. central bank toward raising interest rates at a faster pace than currently expected as policymakers seek to maintain inflation near the 2% target.
Markets are currently looking for the Fed’s next rate hike to arrive in June with a follow-up increase in September, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool. Odds for a third hike, for a total of four in 2018, were last at around 44%.
In addition to the inflation data, investors will also keep an eye on weekly jobless claims to be released at the same time.
On the company front, earnings season continues to wind down. As of late Wednesday, 449 of the S&P 500 companies had already reported with 77% beating profit forecasts and 74% topping sales estimates.
Analysts at The Earnings Scout noted the strong first quarter earnings with profit growth so far of 24.7% along with a 9.3% increase in revenues. They predicted that they will improve even further in both the second and third quarter. “Most importantly, above trend growth is likely to persist well into 2019,” these experts commented.
Among companies on watch Thursday, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA)., Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC), Dropbox (NASDAQ:DBX), and Yelp (NYSE:YELP) will post earnings.
Meanwhile, oil prices continued higher on Thursday, notching another three-and-a-half-year peak as escalating geopolitical tensions between Israel and Iran cast further uncertainty about supply disruptions from the region.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.58% to $71.55 by 6:28AM ET (10:28GMT), while Brent oil traded up 0.22% to $77.38.
Elsewhere, Europe's major bourses were mostly higher in early afternoon trade, with banks leading the charge up after Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) agreed to smaller-than-expected settlement with the U.S.
Also in the UK, investors looked ahead to the Bank of England’s rate decision at 7:00AM ET (11:00GMT), with market expectations now overwhelmingly in favor of interest rates being held at the current 0.5% rate.
Interest rate bets have swung around sharply from early-April when investors priced a 90% chance of the BoE raising rates by 25 basis points. But a spate of weak economic data is almost certain to stay the BoE’s hand, which might now struggle to convince investors that it will raise borrowing costs at all this year.
BoE Governor Mark Carney will hold a press conference a half an hour after the announcement, and investors will monitor his language for signals on what the appetite is for hikes further out in 2018.
Earlier, Asian stocks closed higher, buoyed by the strong overnight lead from Wall Street. That came after data that showed that China’s factory inflation gained pace in April, snapping a five-month streak of declines, while the consumer price index eased.