(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Wednesday after U.S.-China trade talks offered little sign of a durable resolution to their longstanding trade tensions, while investors turned their focus to a key inflation reading.
The May consumer prices report (CPI) is due at 8:30 a.m. ET, with economists polled by Reuters expecting a 0.2% rise month-over-month and a 2.5% increase on an annual basis, slightly higher compared with April as tariffs potentially raised underlying price pressures.
“Markets appear to be shifting their focus – at least temporarily – away from headline-driven tariff risk and back to the macro data that really matters,” said Jeff O’Connor, head of market structure at Liquidnet in emailed comments.
“Investors are bracing for the first hard evidence of how recent trade policies may be filtering into inflation.”
Traders are pricing in 44 basis points of rate cuts by year-end, penciling in a 50% chance of a 25 bps cut in September, according to the CMEGroup’s FedWatch tool. Policymakers are widely expected to keep rates unchanged next week.
U.S. and Chinese officials agreed on a framework to put their trade truce back on track and resolve China’s export restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday at the conclusion of two days of intense negotiations in London.
The negotiations, which are pending reviews from President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, were aimed at mitigating tit-for-tat tariffs between the two superpowers that have roiled global markets for much of the year.
But the talks did little to lift sentiment among investors, who had priced the deal in to some extent.
The U.S. stock market has rallied in recent weeks, recovering from a slump in April sparked by Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The S&P 500 remains about 1.7% below all-time highs touched in February, while the Nasdaq is 2.3% below its record peaks reached in December.
At 06:01 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 88 points, or 0.21%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 12.5 points, or 0.21%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 44.25 points, or 0.2%.
Among stocks, Tesla advanced 1.8% premarket after CEO Elon Musk also said he regrets some of the posts he made last week about Trump, opening the way to a healing of an abrupt rift that has roiled its shares.
Software development platform provider GitLab fell 13% after it reported quarterly results.
Shares of videogame retailer GameStop fell 4.7% after it reported a decline in first-quarter revenue.
(Reporting by Kanchana Chakravarty in Bengaluru)
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