Early trading on Tuesday may witness a shift in stocks towards the upside, recovering from the slight downturn of the previous session. As of now, the prominent index futures indicate a positive market opening, with the S&P 500 futures rising by 0.3 percent.
The monetary policy declaration by the Federal Reserve last week has instilled a fresh spark of optimism regarding interest rates amongst Wall Street buyers. The Fed left interest rates untouched, as expected, while preserving their projection for three rate reductions this year. Consequently, the odds for a 25 basis point rate cut in June have jumped back to 64.4 percent, suggests the FedWatch Tool by the CME Group.
Following the Fed announcement, the key averages ascended to record highs, causing some profit-taking over the past two sessions. Nonetheless, the selling pressure remained mild, given traders' fears of missing out on potential gain outweigh the suggestions that the markets are overextended.
In the U.S economic landscape, the Commerce Department's report released today demonstrated a significant increase in new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods for February. Orders for durable goods leaped by 1.4 percent, after experiencing a revised fall of 6.9 percent in January. This surpassed economists' predictions of a 1.3 percent rise, in contrast to the 6.2 percent tumble reported in the preceding month.
Notably, orders for transportation equipment contributed significantly, surging by 3.3 percent in February, following an 18.3 percent drop in January. Excluding these gains in transportation equipment orders, durable goods orders increased by 0.5 percent in February, after a decrease of 0.3 percent in January. This slightly trumped the speculated increase of 0.4 percent.
Soon after the trading session commenced, the Conference Board is set to publish its report on consumer confidence for March. The consumer confidence index is predicted to remain steady in March, following a decline to 106.7 in February.
Following a downward shift at the start of Monday's trading, stocks experienced some fluctuations throughout the trading session but primarily maintained a negative inclination. At the end of the day, all primary averages were lower than the mixed results of the previous Friday's trading.
In Monday's trading, the Nasdaq, predominantly technology-based, fell by 44.35 points or 0.3 percent to 16,384.47, retreating from the record high of the previous session. Similarly, the S&P 500 dipped by 15.99 points or 0.3 percent to 5,218.19, while the Dow dropped 162.26 points or 0.4 percent to 39,313.64.
In overseas trading, Tuesday observed a mixed performance across Asia-Pacific region's stock markets. Both Japan's Nikkei 225 Index and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index recorded a minor drop, whereas Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced by 0.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the prominent European markets are on the rise. The German DAX Index climbed by 0.7 percent, the French CAC 40 Index by 0.3 percent, and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index by 0.1 percent.
In commodities trading, crude oil futures have marginally risen to $82.09 a barrel after a leap of $1.32 to $81.95 a barrel on Monday. Gold futures also advanced by $18.40 to $2,216.60 an ounce after a surge of $16.60 to $2,198.20 an ounce in the previous session.
Regarding currency, the U.S. dollar is trading at 151.44 yen, slightly up from the 151.42 yen at the close of New York trading on Monday. Likewise, against the euro, the dollar has increased slightly to $1.0850 from yesterday's $1.0837.
