DJIA futures up 45 points (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 12 Jun - US futures were modestly higher ahead of a busy double-bill day featuring inflation data and a Federal Reserve decision on interest rates.

Wall Street ended mixed yesterday as the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq closed out at new record highs thanks mainly to a 7.3% gain by Apple following its push into artificial intelligence technology.

First off today will be the inflation reading for May which is expected to show pricing pressure last month remained virtually unchanged. Economists project the consumer price index to have risen 3.4% on the year, the same rate as last month, while core is seen rising 3.5%, slightly lower than in April.

Stubborn inflation has prompted the Fed to put back the timetable for rate cuts and prompted traders to recalculate their expectations for the number of cuts this year.

Later today the Fed will almost certainly keep its key rates steady though most eyes will be on the so-called 'dot plot' - a chart updated on a quarterly basis giving each Fed member's prediction on the trajectory of the federal funds rate.

Fed officials have repeatedly said they will not contemplate a monetary pivot until there is hard proof that inflation is firmly under control and falling towards its 2% target.

On the stocks front shares in Oracle were up almost 8% in premarket trade on the software maker's cloud deals with Google and OpenAI and comments it expects demand to keep accelerating. Paramount shares were lower after Shari Redstone stopped talks to sell her controlling stake to Skydance Media and merge the two companies.

Futures on the Dow Jones were up 45.00 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 futures were up 8.25 points, or 0.15%, while futures on the Nasdaq were 34.50 points, or 0.18%, higher.

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(RADIOCOR) 12-06-24 13:47:26 (0375) 5 NNNN