Futures tick lower as inflation worries take hold ahead of CPI data

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – Wall Street stock futures edged lower on Wednesday as signs of rising inflation across the world dampened investor sentiment ahead of the release of U.S. consumer prices data.

The Labor Department’s consumer prices index (CPI) is due at 8:30 am ET and is expected to rise 5.8% in October, after a 5.4% increase in the previous month.

The report comes a day after producer prices data showed a solid rise in October and will be scrutinized for clues on the extent to which manufacturers were passing on higher costs to consumers, whose spending accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy.

Wall Street’s main indexes ended their long streak of record closing highs on Tuesday as investors booked profits from the recent run-up in gains, especially in the absence of market-moving catalysts.

The declines on Wednesday came after data showed Chinese factory gate prices hit a 26-year high in October, while economic advisers to the German government said they expected the current rise in inflation to continue well into 2022.

Losses were broad-based. Big lenders including JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) fell about 0.3% each in premarket trading.

Big industrial and energy firms such as Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:), 3M Co and Chevron (NYSE:) Inc shed between 0.3% and 0.4%.

Mega-cap technology and communications companies including Apple Inc (NASDAQ:), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:), Meta Platforms Inc, formerly known as Facebook (NASDAQ:), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:) Inc dropped between 0.4% and 0.9%.

But Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc shares edged 0.1% higher, steadying after a two-day selloff that saw the electric-vehicle maker lose as much as $200 billion in market capitalization.

At 6:44 a.m. ET, were down 90 points, or 0.25%, were down 16.25 points, or 0.35%, and were down 95.75 points, or 0.59%.

Investors also looked forward to the release of weekly jobless claims data, which will likely show fewer Americans opted for state unemployment benefits last week.

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