U.S. stock index futures were mixed on Tuesday in the run-up to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting that will shape expectations for its interest rate path, while investors also awaited a fresh batch of earnings reports.
Wall Street's main indexes rallied over 1% in the previous session, rebounding from a selloff in the past few weeks that was sparked by surging Treasury yields and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
U.S. equities are tracking their third straight month in the red, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq on course for their worst October since 2018.
At 5:18 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 95 points, or 0.29%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 4 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 14.25 points, or 0.1%.
The Fed is set to kick off a two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday, at the end of which it is widely expected to hold interest rates steady, according to the CME Group's Fedwatch tool.
Investors will focus on the Fed's commentary at the end of the meeting on Wednesday to gauge how long monetary policy could stay restrictive.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan tweaked its bond yield control policy again on Tuesday, further loosening its grip on long-term interest rates.
U.S. Treasury yields slid on Tuesday, with the yield on the 10-year note last at 4.84%, a day after the Treasury Department said it expects to borrow $76 billion less this quarter than previously anticipated.
Most megacap growth stocks were subdued, with Tesla and Nvidia down 1.0% and 0.6% respectively in premarket trading.
U.S.-listed shares of Chinese companies such as JD.Com, Alibaba, PDD Holdings and Bilibili shed between 1.3% and 2.1% premarket after data showed China's manufacturing activity unexpectedly contracted in October.
Caterpillar and Pfizer are among the major Wall Street companies set to report earnings before markets open on Tuesday. Shares of Caterpillar rose 1.1%, helping Dow futures outperform peers.
The third-quarter earnings season has crossed the halfway mark, with 77.7% of the 251 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far surpassing analysts' estimates, per LSEG data.
Along with earnings, investors will also monitor a slew of labor market data throughout the week, culminating in Friday's non-farm payrolls report, for further clues on the strength of the U.S. economy.
Among other major movers, Pinterest shares jumped 16% premarket as the image sharing platform beat third-quarter revenue and profit estimates on a stabilizing digital advertising market.
VF Corp dropped 7.9% on withdrawing its annual forecast, while Arista Networks gained 9.8% on an upbeat fourth-quarter revenue forecast.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
