By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters] – U.S. Stock Index Futures were subdued Wednesday, as investors bet that the Federal Reserve will announce a faster wind down of the pandemic-era monetary stimulus earlier in the day.

It is expected that the U.S. central banks will signal an earlier end to their bond-buying program and a quicker beginning to raise interest rates at its meeting. This statement will go out at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) and be followed by a news conference by Fed Chief Jerome Powell half an hour later.

The data on Tuesday revealed that the producer price indexes rose faster than predicted in the twelve months to November. It was its highest gain since 2010. This further puts pressure on Fed officials.

An economist poll by Reuters suggests that interest rates will rise to 0.25-0.50%, which is near zero for the third quarter. This would be followed by one increase in the fourth.

Wall Street’s major indexes are starting the week with a softer start after touching a record closing height on Friday. Investors were concerned about Omicron coronavirus, which is rapidly spreading in the US.

Wall Street futures fell most as shares of large technology companies, such as Tesla (NASDAQ) Inc. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ :), Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ :), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ :), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ :), and Amazon.com Inc.

The shares of large banks like Citigroup Inc (NYSE:), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:), JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:), Bank of America (NYSE:) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:) & Co rose between 0.4% and 0.6%.

6.42 a.m. ET was up 12 points (0.03%), and down 3.75 point(0.08%) while e-minis dropped 53.5 points (0.3%).

Albemarle (NYSE.) Corp (NYSE.) Livent (NYSE.) Corp dropped 4.5% and 6.6% after Goldman Sachs(NYSE.) downgraded both Livent producers to “sell” instead of “neutral”.

The economic data shows that U.S. retail sales are expected to rise 0.8% in November after a 1.7% increase in October. This report will be released at 8:30 am EST.