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Posted April 29, 2026 at 11:00 am
With the Fed set to keep rates steady, investors are bracing for earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta while oil climbs and fresh US data rolls in.
US stock futures were mostly flat early Wednesday as investors awaited a Federal Reserve rate decision and a wave of big tech earnings, while oil climbed back above $100 a barrel.
Markets are basically paused ahead of two potential jolts: the Federal Reserve’s policy update and earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, all due after the close. The Fed’s rate-setting group, the Federal Open Market Committee, is expected to keep its benchmark rate range unchanged, so the real focus is Chair Jerome Powell’s comments for hints on what comes next. Traders also get a read on the economy from data like durable goods orders, housing starts, and the US trade-in-goods deficit. Meanwhile, higher oil prices are a quick reminder that energy can still push inflation up, which can feed back into interest-rate expectations.
For markets: Big tech can move the whole market.
The biggest US indexes lean heavily on a handful of mega-cap tech stocks, so their forecasts often matter as much as the headline profit numbers. If these companies signal slower ad spending, cloud demand, or online shopping, it can drag on benchmarks even if the rest of the market is fine. At the same time, oil back above $100 raises the odds of stickier inflation, which tends to be toughest on rate-sensitive areas like housing and smaller growth companies.
The bigger picture: Three forces are steering the outlook.
This is the current macro mix in a nutshell: central-bank policy sets borrowing costs, corporate earnings reveal how businesses are coping, and economic data shows whether demand is cooling. Even if the Fed stays put this meeting, investors care about how long it plans to keep policy “restrictive” – in other words, set to slow the economy. Add volatile energy prices, and the path to a soft landing can look smooth one week and bumpy the next.
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Originally Posted April 29, 2026 – Stocks Hold Steady As Big Tech And The Fed Take Center Stage
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