Stock futures opened little changed Wednesday evening as investors digested a host of mixed corporate earnings results and reassurances from top central bank officials that the latest spike in inflation would likely prove temporary.
Contracts on the S&P 500 hugged the flat line after the index eked out a record intraday high during Wednesday’s regular session. Dow and Nasdaq futures also traded little changed.
The big banks that have so far reported second-quarter earnings have posted mixed results, with revenue and net interest income coming under pressure as interest rates dipped from a March year-to-date peak.
Remarks on Wednesday from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before Congress also called into question the strength of the economic rebound, with the Fed leader saying the U.S. economy was still a ways off from meeting the central bank’s threshold of “substantial further progress” in recovering. The cyclical energy and financial sectors, which stand to benefit from a pick-up in economic activity, underperformed during Wednesday’s session.
“As of late, bank stocks and the financial sector writ large has been flagging a bit after what’s been a pretty strong early part of the year for that sector. And I think there’s a couple of things going on,” Jason Ware, Albion Financial Group partner and chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.
