U.S. Stock Futures Rise Ahead of Fed Decision

By Lauren Almeida 

-- S&P 500, Dow futures climb

-- Crude prices tick higher

-- Asian stocks drop, European shares waver

U.S. stock futures rose ahead of a Federal Reserve policy decision Wednesday when the central bank is expected to cut interest rates.

Futures tied to the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.

Shares in Apple Inc. were up 4.1% in off-hours trading, on the back of strong second-quarter revenue growth reported Tuesday after the closing bell. General Electric also gained 4.1% off-hours after it posted a second-quarter loss but raised its forecasts.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell 5.1% out-of-hours after it projected weaker-than-expected revenue growth for its current quarter on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 was broadly flat, with gains in construction largely offset by losses in the real-estate sector.

Government bond yields fell after figures released by the European Union's statistics agency showed a slowdown in gross domestic product during the second quarter.

German 10-year bund yields, which recently touched fresh lows, fell to minus 0.456, while the yield on their French counterparts dropped to minus 0.159. Yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Shares of Next, the British clothing company, notched one of the biggest rises in the region at 9.2% after it lifted its forecast for profit and sales. EssilorLuxottica, the French Ray-Ban maker, saw its stock price gain 4.6% after it agreed to buy control of its European rival GrandVision.

Glanbia PLC, an Irish food-nutrition firm, fell 13.1% after it issued a profit warning for 2019 and posted lower first-half earnings.

Earlier, Asian stocks were rattled after tweets from President Trump on Tuesday dampened expectations for a breakthrough in U.S.-China trade talks.

"There are issues that make a comprehensive and durable deal quite difficult to achieve," said Arnab Das, global market strategist at Invesco, adding that he doesn't expect a complete breakdown or a Brexit-type risk of a no-deal.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down by 1.3% and the Shanghai Composite Index fell by 0.7%.

Shares of Chinese property developers fell after the country's leadership vowed not to use the real-estate market as a tool to arrest an economic slowdown. At a meeting Tuesday, the Communist Party's top decision-making body reiterated that housing is "used for living, not for speculation," adding it "will not use real estate as a short-term means of stimulating the economy."

In the U.S., the yield on 10-year Treasurys edged down to 2.049% from 2.063% Tuesday. The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the currency against a basket of peers, was flat.

On the earnings front, Kraft Heinz Co. and Qualcomm Inc. are among the large companies due to report Wednesday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was up 0.7% at $65.11 a barrel, amid continued tensions in the Middle East and expectations of lower interest rates in the U.S. Gold edged up 0.2%.

Shen Hong contributed to this article.

Write to Lauren Almeida at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 31, 2019 07:49 ET (11:49 GMT)

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