Investing.com – U.S. Futures pointed to a slightly lower opening bell on Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell makes his debut at Congress.
The S&P 500 futures fell seven points or 0.26% to 2,777.25 as of 6:41 AM ET (11:41 GMT) while Dow futures decreased 52 points or 0.20% to 25,706.0. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures was down 15 points or 0.22% to 6,984.50.
Powell is expected to give testimony before the House Financial Services Committee at 10:00 AM ET (15:00 GMT). Text of the testimony will be released 90 minutes before he starts speaking at 8:30AM ET (13:30 GMT). Investors will pay close attention to comments on his views on the recent uptick in inflation and how that can affect the current rate-hiking path.
Telecommunications firm Nokia (HE:NOKIA) Corp ADR (NYSE:NOK) was among the biggest gainers in pre-market trading, inching up 0.17% while cruise firm Carnival PLC (NYSE:CCL) was up 0.35% and DBV Technologies (NASDAQ:DBVT) rose 8.24%.
Elsewhere Fitbit Inc (NYSE:FIT) slumped 15.68% after its earnings results came in lower than expected while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) inched down 0.21% and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) lost 0.06%. Meanwhile Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) decreased 0.98%.
In economic news, durable goods orders are out at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT), followed by home prices from S&P/ Case-Shiller at 9:00 AM ET (14:00 GMT) and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey at 10:00 AM ET (15:00 GMT).
Earnings session continues on Tuesday, with Etsy Inc (NASDAQ:ETSY), Square (NYSE:SQ), Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M), Hertz Global Holdings Inc (NYSE:HTZ) and SeaWorld Entertainment Inc (NYSE:SEAS) just some of the companies releasing their financial results on Tuesday.
In Europe stocks were down. Germany’s DAX fell 59 points or 0.48% while in France the CAC 40 decreased three points or 0.07% and in London, the FTSE 100 was down 10 points or 0.14%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 lost 11 points or 0.34% while Spain’s IBEX 35 slumped 27 points or 0.27%.
In commodities, gold futures were up 0.07% to $1,333.70 a troy ounce while crude oil futures fell 0.44% to $63.63 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was flat at 89.77.