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U.S. stock futures rose on Monday, while the dollar held steady against global peers, as investors prepared for a key series of interest rate decisions this week from central banks, including the Federal Reserve, in amid renewed risks of global inflation.
The Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting, which ends Wednesday in Washington, will highlight a week in which no fewer than six major global central banks will unveil new rate decisions as the global economy finds strength. renewed and inflationary pressures reemerge.
Indeed, global oil prices hit a new four-month high on Monday after data from China showed both industrial production and retail sales exceeded forecasts for the first two months of the year. Those reports followed better-than-expected export and inflation figures last week.
Brent crude contracts for May delivery, the global benchmark, rose 63 cents to $85.96 a barrel, while copper prices in Shanghai rose to just over $10,000 a tonne.
Investors expect the Federal Reserve to keep its benchmark interest rate stable between 5.25% and 5.5%. But new economic and inflation projections could trim their forecasts for full-year rate cuts and test the market's assumption that the first of those cuts will come in June.
Benchmark 10-year bond yields rose in the New York trading session and were last at a four-week high of 4.311%, while 2-year bonds were set at 4.715%.
Meanwhile, the US dollar index was down 0.02% at 103.412 against a basket of six major world currencies.
On Wall Street, tech stocks appear poised to drive market gains again on Monday, as ai chip maker Nvidia (NVDA) kicks off its three-day GTC developer conference in California and reports suggest Apple (AAPL) will use the alphabet (GOOG) Gemini ai technology to power your iPhone's features.
Nasdaq-linked futures suggest an opening gain of 130 points for the technology benchmark, which is up 6.41% so far this year. Alphabet is trading 4.06% higher and Nvidia expects a 2.3% gain.
A light earnings schedule this week will likely keep the S&P 500 focused on Wednesday's Fed decision. But a busy series of updates on Thursday will effectively close the fourth-quarter reporting season with FedEx numbers. (FDX) Nike (OF) and lululemon (lulu) .
Overall, S&P 500 collective earnings are forecast to rise 10% from a year ago to $476 billion, with the pace of growth slowing to about 5% during the first three months of this year.
Futures contracts linked to the S&P 500 suggest an opening gain of 18 points, while those linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average forecast a drop of 23 points.
In overseas markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 returned to winning ways on Monday with a 2.67% gain ahead of tomorrow's Bank of Japan policy meeting, which could include the country's first rate hike in more than 17 years.
Meanwhile, the MSCI regional benchmark excluding Japan rose 0.67% at the close of trading following the release of better-than-expected economic data from China.
In Europe, Eurostat data confirmed February's inflation rate at 0.6% monthly and 2.6% annually. The pound held at 1.2726 against the US dollar ahead of the Bank of England's rate decision later in the week.
The regional Stoxx 600 index rose 0.02% in early trading in Frankfurt, while Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.14% in London.
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