US stock futures struggled for direction on Thursday after President Donald Trump said he plans to introduce reciprocal tariffs later in the day, as investors waited for fresh inflation data.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) and S&P 500 futures (ES=F) both fluctuated around the flat line after closing lower on Wednesday. Contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were also little changed.
Markets are treading warily after Trump signaled in a social media post that his promised like-for-like tariffs will arrive later on Thursday. “Today is the big one: reciprocal tariffs,” he wrote.
The reciprocal tariffs could target any country that imposes import duties on US products, meaning they have the potential to upend the US’s relationships around the globe. They would be the latest in a Trump tariff overhaul that risks spurring inflation and sparking a global trade war.
Those concerns have investors bracing for another read on price pressures, after January’s hot consumer inflation print dented optimism for an interest rate cut anytime soon. The focus is on whether January’s producer price index will show the expected slight cooling on its release at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Also ahead is a weekly update on jobless claims, which will give a window into the labor market — another key input for the Federal Reserve’s policy decision making.
Meanwhile, markets are assessing the prospects for an end to the Ukraine war, after Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to start holding peace talks. The dollar (DX-Y.NYB, DX=F) fell after the news.
Earnings season rolls on, looking solid after a majority of beats from the almost 70% of S&P 500 companies to have reported so far. Robinhood (HOOD) shares soared in pre-market trading on the heels of a fourth-quarter profit beat. But Reddit’s (RDDT) stock tumbled amid a miss in user growth at the social media company.
The highlights late Thursday include Airbnb (ABNB), Applied Materials (AMAT), and Coinbase (COIN).
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