US stock futures tilted lower on Tuesday as investors braced for a pivotal inflation reading, while JPMorgan (JPM) results kicked off the fourth quarter earnings season.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) nudged down 0.2%, while those on the S&P 500 (ES=F) floated down 0.1%. Contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) edged down 0.2%. On Monday, Wall Street stocks eked out fresh record closes as investors largely shrugged off concerns around a US criminal probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
JPMorgan Chase led out this week’s rush of big bank results, posting a quarterly earnings miss amid a $2.2 billion hit to net income from a Apple Card deal. Shares in America’s biggest bank were a touch higher after the report. With earnings season now unofficially underway, Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and Morgan Stanley (MS) follow with their own results in coming days.
Markets are now in wait-and-see mode ahead of the latest reading on US consumer inflation, a key input into the Fed’s rate-setting decisions. The December consumer price index is expected to offer the clearest picture of trends in months after the record government shutdown disrupted data reports.
The CPI report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, is expected to show inflation pressures remained steady last month, with an annual headline rate of 2.7% and a monthly rate of 0.3%.
The data takes on added importance after the December jobs report pointed to a cooling labor market. Traders see a 95% chance that the Fed holds rates steady in January, and are pricing in June for the first of two quarter-point cuts in 2026, per the CME FedWatch Tool.
Meanwhile, global central bankers have joined the likes of Janet Yellen and Alan Greenspan in rushing to condemn the Justice Department’s investigation of Powell, seen as a threat to the Fed’s autonomy. Powell, whose term as Fed chair expires in May, characterized the probe as political pressure from President Trump, who has repeatedly called for aggressive interest-rate cuts.
On another front, Trump said late Monday that countries that continue to do business with Iran will face a 25% US tariff. The vow adds another layer of geopolitical uncertainty to a market already grappling with moves on Venezuela and Greenland, and could threaten the US trade truce with China.
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