By TERESA CEROJANO and MATT OTT, Associated Press
Wall Street futures are largely unchanged Wednesday and with little corporate news or earnings reports during the holiday-shortened week. There may also be a pullback ahead of critical U.S. employment data that arrives Thursday, and a looming U.S. tariff deadline next week.
Futures for the S&P 500 are flat before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose just 0.1%. Nasdaq futures ticked down 0.1%.
Markets in Japan declined, anxious over a lack of progress in trade talks with the U.S. ahead of a July 9 deadline to make deals or face higher tariffs.
Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, pointed to President Donald Trump’s declaration that there will be no extension of his tariff pause.
“The message was blunt: if Tokyo won’t yield, it will pay. Tariffs of 30%, 35% or ‘whatever number we determine’ are now openly back on the table,” Innes said. “The negotiating table just became a pressure cooker.”
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo closed 0.6% lower at 39,762.48.
In Washington, Republican leaders in the House are hustling to get a Wednesday vote on Trump’s tax and spending cuts package. The bill passed the Senate 51-50 on Tuesday, thanks to Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote.
Some economists fear that if the bill becomes law, it would send the U.S. government’s debt spiraling higher, igniting another bout of inflation. That in turn could mean interest rates would remain elevated and drag down prices for bonds, stocks and other investments.
With markets closed on Friday for the Fourth of July, the June jobs report was moved up a day to Thursday and will coincide with the Labor Department’s weekly data release on layoffs.
In corporate news, Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Trump over the editing of CBS’ “ 60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in October. Paramount shares were largely unaffected by the news, rising about 0.6% before the bell.
Paramount told media outlets the settlement did not include an apology and that the money will go to Trump’s future presidential library, not to the president himself.
Elsewhere, at midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.5%, while the CAC 40 in Paris added 1.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.1%.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.6% to 24,221.41, and the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 3,454.79.
South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.5% to 3,075.06 after the government reported that inflation rose in June.
Australia’s S&P ASX 200 climbed 0.7% to 8,597.70. Taiwan’s Taiex edged up 0.1% while the Sensex in India lost 0.3%.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 88 cents to $66.33 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 87 cents to $67.98 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 144.18 Japanese yen from 143.41 yen. The euro slid to $1.1751 from $1.1808.
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