US stock futures traded carefully on Thursday morning, as details from last month’s Federal Reserve meeting showed that the central bank plans to be aggressive in fighting inflation. The main futures indicators indicate a modest profit when the start bell on Wall Street rings. GET FOX BUSINESS IN ENGINE BY CLICKING HERE The Fed’s comments have fueled investor concerns about the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus outbreak in China and persistent high inflation. Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, USA, April 6, 2022. (REUTERS / Brendan McDermid / Reuters Photos) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to these concerns, pushing up energy and commodity prices. RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures rose 65 cents to $ 96.86 a barrel. Brent futures rose 84 cents to $ 101.91 a barrel. Investors absorbed the minutes from of the Federal Reserve March meeting, at which policymakers signaled the rise inflation and an incredibly tight labor market could justify raising interest rates by half a point in future meetings. FED MEANS “APPROPRIATE” INCREASE OF HALF UNIT INTEREST RATES IN FUTURE MEETINGS The minutes also confirmed the statements of Fed Governor Lael Brainard on Tuesday that the central bank could start reducing the balance sheet as early as May. The yield on the 10-year bond was 2.56%. The yield rose to 2.61% after the release of the minutes, from 2.54% late Tuesday. by Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway revealed on Wednesday that it had bought nearly 121 million shares of HP Inc. stock. The investment gives Berkshire about 11.4% of HP, valued at about $ 4.2 billion. HP shares gained 11% in premarket. The weekly unemployment applications are in Thursday’s financial bulletin. Expectations are 200,000 to apply for unemployment benefits, slightly lower than 202,000 last week. Ongoing claims, which track the total number of unemployed receiving benefits, are expected to rise to 1.311 million, from a 52-year low of 1.307 million. Bitcoin traded around $ 43,000. In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1.7%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.2% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.4%. Ticker Security Last change% I: DJI DOW JONES AVERAGES 34496.51 -144.67 -0.42% SP500 S&P 500 4481.15 -43.97 -0.97% I: COMP NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX -422% -8318. In Wednesday’s session, the S&P 500 fell 1% to 4,481.15 points, increasing its losses from the previous day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% to 34,496.51 points and the technology Nasdaq lost 2.2% to 13,888.82 points. Shares of the technology were the biggest impact on the S&P 500 benchmark. Apple fell 1.8% and Microsoft fell 3.7%. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT FOX BUSINESS The Associated Press contributed to this report.
