U.S. futures edge lower with central bankers, chip wars in focus

Investing.com — U.S. futures edged lower on Wednesday as investors awaited comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, while tech stocks were pressured lower amid reports that Washington is considering new curbs on chip exports to China.

At 06.56 ET (10:56 GMT), the contract inched up 10 points, while dipped 7 points or 0.1%, and were down 65 points or 0.4%.

The losses came after Wall Street rebounded on Tuesday, with the tech-heavy leading the way, rising 1.6%. The blue-chip snapped a six-day losing streak while the rose after falling in five of the last six sessions.

Powell comments

Market sentiment remained subdued ahead of a panel discussion at the European Central Bank’s annual forum in Sintra, Portugal. The panel, which is set to begin at 9:30 ET (13:30 GMT) includes Powell, as well as ECB President Christine Lagarde, Bank of England head Andrew Bailey, and Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda.

Powell’s comments are expected to underline expectations for additional rate hikes this year.

Data on Tuesday indicated that the U.S. economy remained on a solid footing despite fears over the prospect of a recession, but also indicated that the Fed will likely have to keep hiking.

New orders for key U.S.-manufactured capital goods unexpectedly rose in May, and sales of new single-family homes surged last month, while U.S. consumer confidence rose to an almost one-and-a-half-year high in June.

Investors have narrowed the odds on a July rate hike – traders are now a roughly 77% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points to the 5.25%-5.50% range, up from 74.4% a day earlier.

Chip wars

Worries over renewed Sino-U.S. trade tensions also weighed after The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington is on exports of artificial intelligence chips to China.

Shares in Nvidia (NASDAQ:), which gets around a fifth of its revenue from China, were down 3.5% ahead of the open, while shares in rival chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:) and Micron (NASDAQ:) were also lower.

The Commerce Department will stop the shipments of chips made by Nvidia and other chip companies to customers in China as early as July, the WSJ report said.

Bank stress tests

Meanwhile, the U.S. Fed is due to release the results of its annual bank health checks after markets close.

The country’s largest lenders, particularly JPMorgan (NYSE:), Citigroup (NYSE:), Wells Fargo (NYSE:), Bank of America (NYSE:), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:), and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) are closely watched by investors.

(Oliver Gray contributed to this item.)