Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a higher open on Tuesday with the Dow and S&P set to mark fresh record highs as market players focused on more appointments with Federal Reserve (Fed) policy makers and watched as oil sank nearly 2%.
The blue-chip Dow futures inched up 10 points, or 0.05%, at 7:08AM ET (11:08GMT), the S&P 500 futures rose less than a point, or just 0.01%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures edged forward 13 points, or 0.23%.
With no major economic reports scheduled for Tuesday, market players continued to focus on remarks from Fed officials.
Hawkish remarks made by influential New York Fed chief William Dudley on Monday reinforced expectations for the Fed to keep raising interest rates.
Although, Chicago Fed president Charles Evans gave a more dovish outlook after the market close on Monday, suggesting that it may be worthwhile for the U.S. central bank to wait until year-end to decide whether to raise rates again.
Fed vice chair Stanley Fischer did not address the outlook for U.S. monetary policy or the economy when he spoke in Amsterdam earlier in the day.
Still ahead, Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren will speak at 8:15AM ET (12:15GMT) at the DNB-Riksbank Macroprudential Conference Series meeting in Amsterdam while the head of the Dallas Fed Robert Kaplan will speak in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club of California at 3:00PM ET (19:00GMT).
Against a basket of six major currencies, the dollar showed little movement near intraday highs but was last up just 0.07% at 97.30 by 7:10AM ET (11:10GMT).
Markets were still betting against the Fed being able to move ahead with another rate hike by the end of the year with odds at around just 38%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
Investors also weighed remarks from the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives who vowed on Tuesday to complete tax reform in 2017, saying that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress cannot allow the chance to overhaul the U.S. tax code to slip.
In remarks for a speech to U.S. manufacturers released by his office, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Congress and the Trump administration are moving "full speed ahead" to deliver fundamental tax reform for individuals, corporations and small businesses.
"We are going to get this done in 2017. We need to get this done in 2017. We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip," Ryan said in remarks prepared for a Tuesday afternoon speech to the National Association of Manufacturers, a powerful Washington lobby group.
Meanwhile, oil prices sank on Tuesday to the lowest level since November in North, as concerns over a glut in the market continued to batter sentiment.
U.S. crude futures fell 1.78% to $43.63 by 7:10AM ET (11:10GMT), while Brent oil lost 1.75% to $46.09.