Wall Street Likely To Open With Negative Bias

(RTTNews) - Lower U.S. index futures point to a slightly negative start on Wall Street on Wednesday.

The Dow futures are lower by about 0.2 percent, the S&P Futures are down 0.27 percent, and the Nasdaq futures are down 0.35 percent.

The market is also likely to reports that heavy fighting is continuing in Ukraine's eastern borders and Ukraine is putting up a fierce resistance in the Donbas region.

The focus will be on the minutes of the central bank's latest policy meeting, due later in the day. Investors are also looking ahead to the non-farm payrolls data, which is due out later in the week.

Stocks ended on a mixed note on Tuesday after a volatile session, as fears about a possible recession and interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve weighed on sentiment. Growth fears outweighed news that U.S. President Joe Biden may announce a rollback of some US tariffs on Chinese imports.

The Dow regained substantial part of the lost ground and ended just modestly lower, while the S&P 500 finished with a marginal gain. The Nasdaq rebounded midway through the session, and kept moving higher as the day progressed to eventually close on a strong note.

The Dow rallied nearly 450 points from the day's low to settle at 30,967.82, recording a loss of 129.44 points or 0.42 percent. The S&P 500, which dropped to 3,742.06, settled with a gain of 6.06 points or 0.16 percent at 3,831.39.

The Nasdaq ended higher by 194.39 points or 1.75 percent at 11,322.24, rallying from a low of 10,911.45.

Energy stocks tumbled as crude oil prices fell sharply amid concerns about outlook for energy demand following a surge in Covid cases in China.

Commodity, Currency Markets

West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August are up $0.95 or 0.95 percent at $100.45 a barrel.

Gold futures are down $4.20 or 0.24 percent at $1m759.70 an ounce.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar is trading at $1.0170 against the Euro after settling at $1.0265 on Tuesday. Against the Japanese currency, the dollar is weak, fetching 135.14 yen, compared with 135.86 on Tuesday.

Asia

Asian stocks ended lower on Wednesday as recession worries weighed, and investors awaited an update from the FOMC meeting minutes due later in the day.

Chinese shares tumbled as another wave of COVID infections across Shanghai raised the specter of another lockdown. The benchmark Shanghai Composite index fell 1.43 percent to 3,355.35.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closed 1.22 percent lower at 21,586.66 as recession fears deepened.

Japanese shares ended sharply lower, dragged down by energy stocks. The Nikkei average fell 1.20 percent to 26,107.65, snapping a two-day rally.

Europe

European stocks are up firmly in positive territory Wednesday afternoon after suffering sharp losses in the previous session on recession fears. Bargain hunting at several counters is contributing to the rise in stock prices.

The pan European Stoxx 600 is climbing nearly 1.5 percent. The U.K.'s FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 are all up in positive territory, gaining 1.55 percent, 1.3 percent and 1.48 percent, respectively.

U.S. Economic Reports

Data on U.S. manufacturing and services sector activity are due at 9.45 AM ET. The Federal Reserve's minutes from their latest policy meeting will be out at 2 PM ET.