No recommendation
No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. Hargreaves Lansdown may not share ShareCast's (powered by Digital Look) views.
(Sharecast News) - The latest policy announcement from the Federal Reserve will be among the highlights on Wednesday, along with results from consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser and US tech firm Microsoft.
Investors will also eye half-year results from Rio Tinto, Standard Chartered, Lancashire Holdings, Aberdeen, Greggs, Shaftesbury and St James's Place, and a half-year production report from Glencore.
Across the pond, Microsoft will be joined by Meta and Procter & Gamble, both of which are also slated to report quarterly results.
AJ Bell analysts Russ Mould and Danni Hewson said that with Microsoft shares now lagging the benchmark S&P 500 over the past half decade, investors will be hoping to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
"In recent quarters investors have fixated on the rapid expansion in AI-related capital expenditure rather than growth of the Azure cloud business," they said. "The heavy spending has stifled free cash flows.
"There is increasing pressure on Microsoft to 'show investors the money' with tangible returns on its AI investments. Some progress has been visible with Copilot seats surpassing 20 million in the third quarter, up 250% year-on-year."
Investors will also be eyeing the latest policy announcement from the Federal Reserve, which is widely expected to keep the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75%.
Rabobank also expects the funds rate to be unchanged but said the Committee is more likely to discuss hikes than cuts.
"Fed Chair Kevin Warsh may get the 'family fight' that he has said he wanted," it said. "We could even see one or more dissents in favour of a hike. This would increase the risk of a hike at the next meeting in September. The lower-than-expected CPI inflation for June should have reduced the need for a hike at this meeting, but renewed hostilities in the Middle East could lead to a hike later this year.
"The FOMC statement could be largely identical to last month's, but the reaffirmation of the policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system may be superfluous this time. Kevin Warsh's press conference may be as uninformative as his debut in June."
On the macro front, UK consumer credit, mortgage approvals and net lending figures for June are due at 0930 BST.