S&P 500 futures scale record high as Oracle soars; inflation data on tap

By Purvi Agarwal and Ragini Mathur

Futures tied to the S&P 500 hit an all-time high on Wednesday, propelled by a surge in cloud computing firm Oracle, as investors awaited producer prices data due later in the day for insights into U.S. inflation.

Oracle ORCL soared 31.7% in premarket trading after it said it expected booked revenue at its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business to exceed half a trillion dollars, as demand for its low-cost cloud infrastructure services grew.

The ripple effect led to gains in some chipmakers, with Nvidia NVDA rising 2.2%, Advanced Micro Devices AMD up 3.6% and Broadcom AVGO adding 2.2%.

Data center power suppliers also benefited from the cloud computing giant's upbeat forecast, with Constellation Energy CEG up 1.9%, Vistra VST advancing 2.9% and GE Vernova GEV 3.5% higher.

Markets will monitor August's producer prices report later on Wednesday to assess the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies on inflation, and whether it could help make the case for a jumbo 50-basis-point cut at the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting next week.

"A sign that elevated inflation isn't just stubborn but heading higher could dent hopes for a succession of cuts to come," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown.

"It's unlikely to push the Fed off course this month, but the 'dot plot' path of cuts ahead may look shakier."

Another key dataset, the U.S. consumer prices reading, is expected on Thursday.

Recent labor market data confirmed a slowdown in the U.S. jobs market, prompting traders to price in an at least 25-bps reduction in interest rates at the Fed's September 16-17 meeting.

August nonfarm payrolls data led traders to bet on a bigger-than-usual 50-bps reduction, with its probability standing at 8.2%, CME's FedWatch tool showed.

At 07:07 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis (YMcv1) fell 57 points, or 0.12%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQ1! rose 52.5 points, or 0.22%, and S&P 500 E-minis ES1! gained 19 points, or 0.29%.

Meanwhile, a federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked Trump from removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, an early setback for the White House in an unprecedented legal battle that could potentially upend the central bank's long-held independence.

The three main indexes closed at record peaks on Tuesday following a downward payrolls revision that kept rate-cut bets intact, while a rise in UnitedHealth UNH shares aided gains.

Wall Street has had a broadly positive start to September - a month deemed historically bad for U.S. equities - with the benchmark index losing 1.5% on average since 2000, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Reflecting the growing optimism around U.S. markets, Barclays raised its 2025 year-end target for the S&P 500, for the second time in three months, to 6,450 from 6,050.

In other stocks, Synopsys SNPS slid 22.3% before the bell after the chip design software provider missed Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue on Wednesday.

Peer Cadence Design Systems CDNS slipped 4.6%.

GameStop GME gained 11.3% after the video game retailer reported higher second-quarter revenue.