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Chip Stocks Lift Nasdaq Futures Ahead of Fed Rate Decision

Chip Stocks Lift Nasdaq Futures Ahead of Fed Rate Decision

Nasdaq futures inched higher on Wednesday as chip sector stocks gained after quarterly orders for semiconductor equipment maker ASML Holding (NASDAQ: ASML) exceeded expectations, while investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision later in the day.

Markets widely expect the central bank to hold its lending rate steady in its decision due at 2 p.m. ET.

“Market pricing has shifted significantly higher since the U.S. presidential election and indicates basically zero percent probability of a cut today,” said Amanda Sundström, FX & FI strategist at SEB.

Markets have been on edge due to worries around President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, which could exacerbate inflationary pressures and slow rate cuts.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump still plans to make good on his promise to issue tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Saturday.

The December reading of the personal consumption expenditures price index, a crucial metric in assessing the inflation trajectory, is due on Friday.

Point72 Asset Management’s founder Steven Cohen said he expects the stock market to reach a peak soon amid inflation pressure and uncertainties around Trump’s policies on tariffs and immigration.

On Wednesday,  United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) and T-Mobile US (NASDAQ: TMUS) are some of the companies set to report quarterly earnings before the bell.

Earnings from “Magnificent 7” members Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Facebook-parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are expected after markets close. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) will also report quarterly numbers later this week.

Meanwhile, shares of semiconductor firms and related equipment makers advanced in premarket trading after Dutch firm ASML reported fourth-quarter bookings of 7.09 billion euros ($7.39 billion), a number that far exceeded expectations.

KLA Corp (NASDAQ: KLAC), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), Lam Research (NASDAQ: LRCX), and Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) advanced between 2.6% and 4.7%.

At 06:59 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 14 points, or 0.03%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 8.25 points, or 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 100 points, or 0.46%.

The Nasdaq jumped 2% in the last session, while the S&P 500 rose close to 1%, as Nvidia and other artificial intelligence-linked tech shares recovered somewhat from the steep losses earlier this week.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) edged 0.4% lower after gaining close to 9% on Tuesday. Its shares were hammered on Monday after Chinese startup DeepSeek launched an AI model it said was cost-effective and ran on less advanced chips.

Among other stocks, cybersecurity and cloud services firm F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) jumped 13.9% after forecasting second-quarter revenue above estimates and beating first-quarter revenue estimates.

Chipmaker Qorvo (NASDAQ: QRVO) lost 5.1% after reporting lower third-quarter revenue.

Danaher (NYSE: DHR) fell 4.8% after the life sciences company reported fourth-quarter adjusted profit below estimates and said it expects first-quarter 2025 adjusted core revenue to decline.