© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A street sign for Wall Street is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, New York, U.S., July 19, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
By Devik Jain
(Reuters) -U.S. stocks were set to slip from their record perch on Thursday as mixed earnings reports and economic data kept investors on edge ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy summit.
Futures for the main indexes dipped after St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said he was skeptical about inflation moderating in 2022 and that the central bank wants to complete tapering its bond purchases by end of first quarter next year.
Fed chief Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole economic symposium on Friday will be closely watched for more clues on the timing of the wind-down of pandemic-era stimulus.
“The market is very focused on what’s going to be said about tapering and you partner that with it being late August, it’s going to be a relatively quiet trading session,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut.
“(Earlier) it seemed very conceivable that the Fed could announce some tapering, but now I’m not so sure.”
Earlier in the day, the Bank of Korea raised its policy rate off a record low on Thursday, becoming the first central bank of a major Asian economy to do so.
U.S. stocks have hit a series of all-time closing highs in the past few sessions, driven by a much stronger-than-expected earnings season and positive news about COVID-19 vaccinations.
However, strategists have projected the benchmark to end the year at 4,500 points, essentially unchanged, expecting the economic recovery as well as earnings growth to lose momentum amid a spike in coronavirus cases and the tapering moves from the Fed.
Data showed the U.S. economy grew a bit faster than initially thought in the second quarter, in a second estimate of GDP growth, while weekly jobless claims increased 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 353,000 for the week ended Aug. 21.
At 8:58 a.m. ET, were up 30 points, or 0.08%, were down 5 points, or 0.11%, and were down 41.5 points, or 0.27%.
Among earnings-driven moves, cosmetics maker Coty (NYSE:) gained 6.6% in premarket trading, while beauty chain Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:) Inc climbed 6% following upbeat earnings updates.
Discount retailers Dollar General Corp (NYSE:) and Dollar Tree Inc (NASDAQ:), however, slipped 4.9% and 6.1% after they warned of profit hit from higher transportation costs.
Rate-sensitive banks including Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:) gained more than 0.5%.
Mega-cap technology stocks Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:), and Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc slipped between 0.3% and 0.4%.
Shares of Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE:) rose 3% after the business software maker trumped market expectations for second quarter earnings and annual revenue forecast.
NetApp Inc (NASDAQ:) added 5.7% as brokerages raised their price targets on the cloud data services provider’s stock following upbeat first quarter result and better-than expected 2022 earnings outlook.
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