Susan Mathew

(Reuters] – U.S. stocks index futures eased Wednesday, with data on retail sales and minutes of Federal Reserve’s latest meeting showing that investors are aware of changes. Western skepticism regarding Russian claims of a withdrawal of troops in Ukraine kept the skies open to a degree of caution.

Russia claimed that more troops from Ukraine are withdrawing, but NATO stated it is still not convinced. Kyiv hinted that Russians may have been involved in the cyberattack on Ukraine’s defence ministry website.

News of the pullback was reported by the Nasdaq, which surged 2.5% on Tuesday. The Dow Jones and Dow Jones both ended higher than 1%.

At 6:52 am. ET was down 43 points or 0.12% on Wednesday. They were also down 4.25 points or 0.1% and down 4 points or 0.03%.

The shares of large banks fell while the shares of Alphabet, Google’s Alphabet (NASDAQ) Inc and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ) declined Microsoft Corp Following strong rallies in the preceding session, investors mixed (NASDAQ:), Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:) Inc.

Retail sales will be reported at 08.30 a.m. ET will likely increase by 2% in January following a decrease of almost the exact measure the previous month. Fed minutes are due at 2 pm. ET is likely to provide insight into the plans of the central bank for cutting its enormous balance sheet, and raising interest rates in 2022.

CME Group’s Fedwatch tool revealed that traders priced in a 57.9% chance of a 50 basis-point hike in March. This is down from 61.8% on Monday. Bets for a 25-bps increase rose to 42.1% from 38%.

According to Ipek Ozkardeskaya (senior analyst at Swissquote), “The game isn’t over for March: A more dovish tone than anticipated from the FOMC minutes might get the market refocusing on a 25-bp increase.”

In the meantime, drugmaker Moderna (NASDAQ) Stephane Bancel was the chief executive at CNBC on Wednesday. He stated that it’s “reasonable” to believe that the last stages of pandemic are near, as the evolution and spread of the coronavirus could lead to more virulent virus.

ViacomCBS shares (NASDAQ:) Inc plunged 9.7% following its miss in profit projections. As it tries to be ahead of the crowd in streaming, Paramount announced that it would change its name and unveil a wide range new programming.

Roblox Corp fell 15.9% as analysts missed their expectations for quarterly bookings. The gaming platform was hit by a pandemic, which led to a decline in demand for its games.

Airbnb Inc increased 3% following a stronger-than-expected forecast for first quarter revenue. This was due to strong travel demand, longer stays and strong sales.

Devon Energy After the fourth quarter results were reported by an oil producer, Corp (NYSE:), rose 2.3%. This was in comparison to Wall Street’s estimates.