Fresh losses eyed on Wall Street as rate hike still looks likely

Wall Street once again racked up notable loss during yesterday’s session, pushing benchmark indices even further into correction territory and leaving the DOW nursing quadruple digit declines since Friday’s open. Tumbling oil prices and conviction that the Federal Reserve will go ahead with a rate hike tomorrow are both taking their toll, even if the chances of policy tightening do seem to have been scaled back a little in recent trade. Once again any upside at the open could prove to be little more than another dead cat bounce.

Economic data is thin on the ground in the near term with housing starts from the US due for release shortly ahead of the opening bell. There is a chance that a significant shortfall here may be sufficient to see the Fed projecting an even more dovish tone tomorrow, but whether that would be sufficient to draw a line under the recent bout of losses remains to be seen. Wall Street could still see a turbulent end to 2018.

Ahead of the open we’re calling the DOW up 93 at 23685 and the S&P up 9 at 2555