Shares Mixed Ahead of Fed, Big Tech Earnings

• Equities traded cautiously on Tuesday with investors eyeing the Federal Reserve’s next policy decision.
• Tech giants Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet all report quarterly earnings later this week.
• “Yesterday was a snooze-fest, and today looks likely to be one too,” Caxton FX’s Michael Brown said.

Markets were subdued once again on Tuesday as investors waited on the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting and the release of Big Tech quarterly earnings reports later this week.

The Federal Open Market Committee concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, with investors anticipating another 75-basis point interest rate hike, while tech giants Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet will all release their quarterly earnings reports this week.

US stock futures slipped slightly in early-morning trading, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures falling 0.38% and Nasdaq futures sliding 0.32%. S&P 500 futures traded 0.30% lower after Walmart‘s profit warning, which dragged the stock 9.3% lower in after-hours trading.

Analysts said that low volume in futures trading meant that investors should expect another quiet day for stocks.

“Yesterday was a snooze-fest, and today looks likely to be one too,” Caxton FX’s head of market intelligence Michael Brown said. “Make the most of the opportunity to kick back, before the fireworks begin on Wednesday.”

Alphabet and Microsoft will be the first Big Tech giant to report their earnings, with Q2 reports set to be released after Tuesday’s closing bell.

“We have Microsoft and Alphabet after the bell today followed by Meta tomorrow and Apple and Amazon on Thursday,” Deutsche Bank managing director Jim Reid said. “So that’s over $7.5 trillion of market cap here alone at stake over the next couple of days.”

Global stocks enjoyed similarly mixed fortunes, with the MSCI World Index climbing 0.1% but several key stock markets experiencing slight falls.

Europe’s flagship Stoxx 600 index climbed 0.04%, weathering drops for Paris’s CAC 40  and Frankfurt’s DAX 40, which fell 0.15% and 0.55%, respectively. London’s FTSE 100 traded more hopefully, climbing 0.63%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.83% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rallied 1.93%, but Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 finished 0.24% lower at the closing bell.

Here’s how the other major asset classes are performing: