U.S. Stock Index Futures Subdued Ahead of Inflation Report

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Tuesday as investors refrained from placing big bets ahead of a crucial inflation report this week that could influence the Federal Reserve at its monetary policy meeting this month.

A November reading of the consumer price index (CPI), due on Wednesday, is among the last major datasets ahead of the Fed's Dec. 17-18 meeting. The report is expected to show a slight increase in inflation last month.

Trader bets on the Fed delivering another 25 basis point interest rate cut next week stand at over 86%, according to CME's FedWatch. Bets had jumped after Friday's employment report that showed a surge in job growth but also marked an uptick in unemployment.

The central bank is expected to pause cuts in January, after a host of officials last week hinted at a slower pace of monetary policy easing on the back of a resilient economy.

At 5:28 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 19 points, or 0.04%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 2 points, or 0.03%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 1.5 points, or 0.01%.

Wall Street's main indexes closed lower on Monday, pressured by technology stocks whose declines were led by Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) after the Chinese market regulator launched an antitrust probe into the AI chip giant. Its shares were down 0.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.

U.S. equities started their year-end journey on a broadly positive note, with the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq logging gains in their first week, building upon a stellar November after Donald Trump's win in the presidential election.

The president-elect's potential policies on tax cuts and looser regulation in the incoming administration are expected to boost corporate performance.

Among premarket movers, Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) dipped 8.4% after the cloud computing company missed Wall Street estimates for second-quarter results and forecast its third-quarter profit below estimates.

C3.ai climbed 8.6% after the AI software maker raised its forecast for fiscal year 2025 revenue, while software firm MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB) slipped 3.6% despite raising its forecast for annual results.