Gold prices steady amid Fed rate cut hopes; Trump-Putin talks awaited
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* Futures up: Dow 0.37%, S&P 0.47%, Nasdaq 0.49%
By Shreyashi Sanyal
Sept 16 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on
Wednesday as investors hoped for a pledge by the Federal Reserve
to keep interest rates low for a prolonged period, with upbeat
quarterly results from FedEx also boosting sentiment.
The central bank's two-day meeting is its first under a
newly adopted framework that promises to shoot for inflation
above 2% to make up for periods where it is running below that
target. The Federal Open Market Committee will release its policy
statement and economic projections at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT),
followed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's virtual news briefing half
an hour later. Wall Street's main indexes have bounced after a tech-driven
slump last week that pushed the Nasdaq Composite index .IXIC
into correction territory in just three sessions.
After declining for two weeks in a row, the benchmark S&P
500 .SPX has rebounded 1.8% in the past two sessions, with
defensive sectors including real estate .SPLRCR and utilities
.SPLRCU among the biggest gainers.
At 6:41 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 103 points, or
0.37%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 16 points, or 0.47%, and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 56 points, or 0.49%.
Delivery firm FedEx Corp FDX.N jumped 10% in premarket
trading after reporting a bigger-than-expected quarterly profit,
helped in part by price hikes and lower fuel costs. Shares in rival United Parcel Service Inc UPS.N gained
4.6%.
Apple Inc AAPL.O rose 0.7%, after ending the previous
session just marginally higher, as it rolled out a new virtual
fitness service and a bundle of all its subscriptions, Apple
One. Other tech-related stocks including Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O ,
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Tesla Inc TSLA.O and Microsoft Corp
MSFT.O gained between 0.6% and 1.0%.
Investors are also awaiting retail sales data for August,
due at 8:30 a.m. ET, with expectations of a reading of 1.0%
compared with July's figures of 1.2%.