US Stock Market Outlook: Mixed Futures, Awaiting 2026 Rate Decision; Strong Pre-Market Gains for Top Stocks.

US Pre-Market Update: Mixed Performance in Futures

As of Wednesday morning, US stock futures showed mixed results. The Dow Jones futures dipped slightly by 0.07%, while the Nasdaq futures rose by 0.79%, and the S&P 500 futures increased by 0.25%.

Tech Stocks Performance

Most major tech stocks saw gains in pre-market trading:

• Intel (INTC) and ASML both surged over 6%.
• Micron Technology (MU) rose more than 5%.
• AMD increased by over 2%.
• NVIDIA (NVDA) gained over 1%.
• Google-A (GOOGL) was up nearly 1%.

Chinese Stocks on the Rise

Popular Chinese stocks also performed well:

• New Oriental (EDU) rose over 5%.
• Bilibili (BILI) increased by more than 4%.
• NIO and Xpeng (XPEV) both gained over 3%.
• Alibaba (BABA) and TSMC were up over 2%.
• Baidu (BIDU) rose by more than 1%.

Gold and Semiconductor Stocks

Gold stocks showed strong performance:

• Gold Fields (GFI) and Harmony Gold (HMY) rose over 3%.
• Hycroft Mining (HYMC), Pan American Silver (PAAS), and Coeur Mining (CDE) increased by over 1%.

Semiconductor stocks also saw gains:

• Texas Instruments (TXN) rose nearly 8%.
• Intel (INTC) was up nearly 6%.
• STMicroelectronics (STM) and Analog Devices (ADI) increased by over 3%.

Notable Earnings Reports

ASML reported Q4 revenue exceeding expectations and announced a €12 billion stock buyback plan.

Seagate Technology (STX) saw a pre-market rise of over 9% after reporting Q2 revenue of $2.83 billion, surpassing analyst expectations.

AT&T (T) also rose over 3% after reporting adjusted earnings above expectations.

Market Outlook

Tonight at 3 AM Beijing time, the Federal Reserve will announce its first interest rate decision of 2026, with expectations leaning towards maintaining current rates.

Market analysts predict a 97.2% chance of no rate change, following three consecutive rate cuts in the latter half of 2025.

Conclusion

Overall, the pre-market trading reflects a positive sentiment among tech and Chinese stocks, while the market awaits the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates.