US futures up ahead of FOMC statement

Futures on major U.S. indices point to higher opening on Wednesday ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s meeting and new home sales data.

Futures on the S&P 500 are up 0.47 percent, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 0.34 percent and Nasdaq100 futures are up 0.40 percent.

Investors are likely to stay glued to the FOMC meeting and interest rate decision, which is due to be released at 2:15 pm EDT. The FOMC will probably maintain its current monetary policy as the world’s largest economy is still on its way to recover from the worst recession since the Second World War.

The interest rate is expected to remain unchanged at 0.25 percent. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates at historic lows in the range between 0 percent and 0.25 percent in an attempt to increase consumer consumption and business operations by making borrowing cheaper to revive the economy.

Meanwhile, new home sales data for the month of December is due to be released after the markets open. Economists have forecast sales of new single-family houses to be 300,000 for December against 290,000 in the previous month.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that we do big things in his State of the Union Address, challenging Americans and Congress to take on the global competition for jobs, and tackle the nation's huge debt and deficit.

To rein in the deficit, he proposed a spending freeze on annual domestic spending for the next five years, also called discretionary non-military spending, saying it would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade.

On the earnings front, Boeing, Abbott, Xerox, Automatic Data Processing, ConocoPhillips and Eastman Kodak are due to report their earnings before the markets open, while Symantec, Starbucks, Robert Half International and QUALCOMM will release their earnings after the closing bell.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks ended narrowly mixed as some optimism over a proposal by President Obama on setting a five-year ban on discretionary spending was overshadowed by disappointing earnings by blue-chip companies such as 3Com (NYSE: MMM) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).

The euro advanced 0.04 percent to 1.3688 against the dollar and the yen gained 0.09 percent against the greenback.

Crude oil futures rose 0.56 percent to $86.67/barrel ahead of inventory data and gold futures gained 0.24 percent.

European stock markets are currently trading in higher with FTSE 100 up by 77.97 points, DAX30 up by 94.70 points and CAC 40 up by 42.88 points.