Wall Street slid lower before the opening bell today, according to the Associated Press. Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were each down 0.6%.
On Wednesday, the Fed will release minutes of its latest meeting, where the U.S. central bank’s main interest rate was raised to the highest level in more than two decades. Traders expect the Fed to hold rates steady at its next meeting, and some bet it will begin cutting rates early next year.
On the corporate front, Home Depot shares barely budged in premarket after the home improvement giant beat Wall Street’s profit and revenue expectations, even as sales continued to decline. Second quarter revenue was $42.92 billion, down 2% from the same stretch last year. Sales have fallen 3.1% through the first half of the year compared with 2022.
U.S. Steel shares were off about 1% in premarket trading this morning, at $30.70 per share, after industrial conglomerate Esmark made an all-cash offer to buy the 122-year-old Pittsburgh steelmaker for $7.8 billion, topping an earlier $7.3 billion offer from rival Cleveland-Cliffs. After the Cleveland-Cliffs proposal was made public on Sunday, shares in U.S. Steel soared nearly 38% on Monday.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 89 cents to $81.62 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 68 cents on Monday to $82.51. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, retreated 74 cents to $85.47 per barrel. The dollar rose to 145.57 yen from Monday’s 145.52 yen.
