U.S. futures slipped early Wednesday as investors awaited the quarterly earnings report from chipmaker Nvidia Corporation. Contracts listed on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slipped by as much as 0.4%, while those on the S&P 500 fell 0.2%. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%.
Investors are on edge due to the high expectations held for Nvidia’s earnings, particularly on the back of its artificial intelligence developments. Given Nvidia’s major influence over the market, any disappointment in the report could shift stocks downward at large.
Markets are also bracing for the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January meeting in an effort to gauge the trajectory of the central bank’s interest rate policy. Currently, investors appear to be gravitating toward the belief that the Fed will introduce interest rate cuts in June; a long way off from previous expectations of a rate cut as early as March.