U.S. stocks were subdued on Thursday, as investors were on the lookout for fresh statements on interest rates from a slate of Federal Reserve officials.
By 10:19 ET (14:19 GMT), the benchmark S&P 500 had dropped by 14 points, or 0.2%, the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite had dipped by 40 points, or 0.2%, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by 136 points, or 0.3%.
Markets were also pouring through minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy gathering and assessing ongoing euphoria around artificial intelligence that has powered a rally in stocks over much of 2025.
Meanwhile, little progress has also appeared in breaking an ongoing stalemate in Washington that caused a now more than week old shutdown of the federal government -- possibly threatening to delay the release of more economic data in the days ahead.
Fed’s Williams supports more rate cuts this year
Risks posed by a cooling labor market could give the Fed more space to drawdown borrowing costs again this year, according to New York Fed President John Williams.
But, speaking to the New York Times, Williams added that slowing employment does not necessarily signal an imminent recession in the U.S. economy.
"My own view is that yes, we would have lower rates this year, but we’ll have to see exactly what that means," Williams told the NYT.
"The risk that inflation got well above 2% and we didn’t bring it back down would be very damaging to the economy and to our credibility. But we need to do it in a way that does our best to minimize the risk of the labor market cooling more sharply."
Other Fed members are scheduled to speak today, although analysts have said the lack of new economic data means that their comments are unlikely to alter the narrative around rates. Chair Jerome Powell offered welcoming remarks at a conference, but did not explicitly mention interest rates.
Markets did have the opportunity to parse through minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s September meeting, when the central bank opted to slash interest rates by 25 basis points and suggested that more reductions could be coming by the end of the year.
The minutes indicated that the committee was divided over the path of rates, with much of the debate centering around a slowing labor market and sticky inflationary pressures. Theoretically, a rate cut helps to spur on investment and hiring, albeit at the risk of reigniting price growth.
Most officials "judged that it likely would be appropriate the ease policy further over the remainder" of 2025, although the exact timing and scope of the cuts remained a source of uncertainty, the minutes showed.
In a note, analysts at Capital Economics said the minutes confirmed that most FOMC participants backed bringing down rates to a more "neutral setting," or a level that neither aids nor hinders the wider economy, due to persistent "downside risks" to the employment picture.
"Nonetheless, with ’a majority of participants’ still emphasising the ’upside risks to their outlooks for inflation,’ we remain comfortable with our view that the FOMC will proceed at a slower pace than market pricing suggests," the analysts said.
Source :
https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/us-futures-subdued-ahead-of-powell-speech-pepsi-delta-earnings-in-focus-4279145
