Trading was mixed early Wednesday on Wall Street as more corporate earnings poured in ahead of a closely-watched inflation report from the U.S. government.
Futures for the S&P 500 were flat, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.1%. Nasdaq futures were up 0.2% before the bell.
Struggling pharmacy chain CVS Health soared 9.3% after it beat Wall Street's modest sales and profit expectations. CVS's profit fell well below the prior-year period, which the company partly blamed on increased medical costs in its insurance division.
Ride-hailing app Lyft tumbled to a 14% loss in premarket trading, despite reporting stronger profits that Wall Street expected. Lyft missed revenue forecasts as higher prices weighed on bookings, the company said.
DoorDash, the food delivery app, gained 5.8% after it fell a hair short of profit expectations but topped analysts' sales targets.
Shares of Frontier Group Holdings, the parent company of Frontier Airlines, were down 3% in premarket after Spirit Airlines rejected a third takeover bid from the budget rival. Spirit said that it would focus on its own plan to emerge from bankruptcy and stabilize its finances.
Coming later Wednesday morning is the government's January report on consumer inflation, which investors will be watching closely to try to determine how the data might inform the Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision. The Fed has dialed back expectations for rate cuts this year as the labor market has remained sturdy and inflation has yet to come down to the central bank's 2% target.
Uncertainty about how the Trump administration's policies — particularly immigration and tariffs — has pushed Fed officials into a more cautious wait-and-see mode with regard to monetary policy.
Most of Wall Street agrees that substantial and sustained tariffs would push up prices for U.S. households and ultimately lead to big pain for financial markets around the world.
But Trump has also shown he can be quick to pull back on such threats. That’s what he did earlier with 25% tariffs he had announced for all imports from Canada and Mexico, suggesting tariffs may be merely a negotiating chip rather than a true long-term policy. That in turn has much of Wall Street hoping the worst-case scenario may not happen.
Trump's latest announcement included 25% tariffs on all foreign steel and aluminum coming into the U.S.
South Korea and to a lesser extent Japan export steel to the U.S., but the impact on their economies might not be that big since both nations export more in other goods to the U.S.
Last month, Trump decided to impose 10% duties on all Chinese imports.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.4% to finish at 38,963.70. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 8,535.30. South Korea's Kospi edged up 0.4% to 2,548.39.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 2.6% to 21,857.92, as excitement over DeepSeek continued, although market watchers are wondering when the rally might peak. The Shanghai Composite edged up 0.9% to 3,346.39.
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX added 0.3% and Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1%. France’s CAC 40 was essentially unchanged.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 81 cents to $72.51 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 69 cents to $76.31 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged up to 153.54 Japanese yen from 152.43 yen. The euro cost $1.0373, up from $1.0363.
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