Wall Street Set To Edge Up At Open

(RTTNews) - Initial cues from the U.S. Futures Index suggest that Wall Street might open slightly up on Wednesday. Trading may be impacted by reaction to reports on durable goods orders, housing starts and industrial production as well as the minutes of the latest FOMC meeting.

Iran-U.S. nuclear talks showed progress, and this positive note might be reflected on investor sentiments.

In the Asian trading session, the U.S. dollar was broadly higher, while gold rose over 1 percent to trade above $4,900 an ounce. Oil edged up slightly.

As of 7.40 am ET, the Dow futures were up 52.00 points, the S&P 500 futures were adding 21.00 points and the Nasdaq 100 futures were progressing 109.25 points.

The major averages finished slightly higher on Tuesday. The Dow inched up 32.26 points or 0.1 percent to 49,533.19, the Nasdaq edged up 31.71 points or 0.1 percent to 22,578.38 and the S&P 500 crept up 7.05 points or 0.1 percent to 6,843.22.

On the economic front, the Durable Goods Orders for December is scheduled at 8.30 am ET. The consensus is for a decline of 2.3 percent, while it was up 5.3 percent.

The Housing Starts and Permits for November will be released at 8.30 am ET. The consensus is 1.325 million.

Housing Start and Permits for December will be revealed at 8.30 am ET. The consensus for starts is 1.31 million, and consensus for permits is 1.40 million.

The Industrial Production for January will be published at 9.15 am ET. The consensus for industrial production is up 0.4 percent, while it was up 0.4 percent in the prior month. The manufacturing output is expected to be up 0.2 percent, while it was up 0.2 percent in the prior month.

Twenty-year Treasury bond auction will be held at 1.00 pm ET.

The Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC will be released at 2.00 pm ET.

The Treasury International Capital data for December will be published at 4.00 pm ET. In the prior week, the Net Long Term Securities Transactions was $220.2 billion.

Asian stock markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday. China, Hong Kong and South Korea closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.

Japanese markets advanced. The Nikkei average climbed 1.02 percent to 57,143.84 while the broader Topix index closed up 1.21 percent at 3,807.25.

Australian markets closed higher. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.54 percent to 9,007. The broader All Ordinaries index settled 0.61 percent higher at 9,238.70.