Pending Home Sales, Fed Speakers, Oil Inventories: 3 Things to Watch

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com --The Dow slipped further into bear market territory on Tuesday but tech stocks rebounded despite rising fears about a global economic slowdown.

The Federal Reserve is determined to stop inflation in its tracks, but that leaves some worried that it will overstep and tip the U.S. economy into recession.

Sentiment is building for another big interest rate increase at the Fed’s November meeting, despite having raised rates already by 0.75 percentage point in June, July and September.

A strong consumer confidence reading is reinforcing those expectations, putting the Fed on a course to raise rates above 4% by the end of the year. 

Consumer sentiment feeds into consumer spending, a dominant contributor to U.S. economic activity.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard indicated on Tuesday that the work is not yet done, adding that rates would need to stay at a higher rate for “some time to make sure we’ve got the inflation problem under control.”

Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow:

1. Pending home sales

After a strong new home sales number on Tuesday, investors will await the pending home sales data at 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT). Analysts expect the number to fall 1.4% in August from the prior month.

2. Fed speakers

A bunch more Fed officials are scheduled to speak on Wednesday, throughout the day, including Chair Jerome Powell and Bullard as well as Raphael Bostic and Michelle Bowman.

3. Oil inventories

The weekly oil inventory data is due out at 10:30 ET, and analysts expect a build of 0.443 million barrels for last week. The number comes with Hurricane Ian bearing down on Florida, away from the heart of the drilling and refining industry in the Gulf of Mexico.