Investing.com – U.S. futures were higher on Thursday after the Federal Reserve increased hikes for the third time this year.
The S&P 500 futures rose two points or 0.08% as of 6:49 AM ET (11:49 GMT) while Dow futures increased 37 points or 0.15%. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures was up seven points or 0.12%.
The Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday raised rates for the third time in 2017 as expected. Fed officials also hiked their projection for economic growth in 2017 to 2.5%, while growth in 2018 was expected to rise to 2.5%, a 0.4% increase from the Fed’s September projection.
Power solution provider Digital Power Corporation (NYSE:DPW) was among the top performers in pre-market trading. The company rose 11.68% after it announced it was creating a cryptocurrency mining division. Meanwhile IT firm Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc (NASDAQ:HMNY) recovered 2.36%. The firm dropped 32.64% on Wednesday amid news that the firm was selling shares to raise funds to increase its stake in ticketing platform MoviePass.
Elsewhere HSBC slipped 0.76% while telecommunications firm Nokia (HE:NOKIA) was down 0.64% and pharmaceutical firm Teva Pharma Industries Ltd ADR (NYSE:TEVA) fell 1.02%.
In economic news, retail sales, jobless claims and import and export price indexes come out at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT).
Investors will be looking to Europe today, as both the Bank of England and European Central Bank are expected to announce their monetary policy decisions. Both banks are expected to hold rates steady. Traders will be listening to what ECB President Mario Draghi says about the economic state of the euro zone while Brexit will be on their minds during the BOE decision.
Stocks in Europe were down. Germany’s DAX lost 72 points or 0.57% while in France the CAC 40 decreased 12 points or 0.23% and in London, the FTSE 100 was down 22 points or 0.28%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 fell 14 points or 0.39% while Spain’s IBEX 35 slipped 37 points or 0.37%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.84% to $1,259.10 a troy ounce while crude oil futures fell 0.27% to $56.45 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched forward 0.01% to 93.41.