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| Facebook earnings; Fed decision; Volkswagen meeting |
By Alanna Petroff
Wednesday, July 26th, 5:39am |
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| 1. Pursuing profits: It's a busy week for earnings and Wednesday's schedule is especially packed. |
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| Quarterly results are due before the opening bell from Boeing, Coca-Cola, Ford, Hershey Foods, Hilton, Anthem, Alaska Air, Nasdaq, Tupperware and other big companies. |
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| The focus will turn to Facebook when the tech giant reports results after the close. Facebook shares have surged 44% so far this year. |
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| Earnings are also due after the closing bell from Gilead Sciences, Whole Foods, Barrick Gold and Goldcorp. |
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| Looking abroad, automakers including Daimler and PSA Group released their latest half-year earnings. Shares in PSA jumped by about 5% after the company reported well-received results. |
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| 2. Fed decision: The U.S. Federal Reserve is set to announce a decision on interest rates at 2 p.m. ET. |
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| Wall Street expects the central bank to hold interest rates steady following last month's rate hike. |
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| "With a rate hike unlikely, the markets will focus on the Fed's statement, looking for signs of when the Fed will begin paring its massive bond holdings and next raise rates," said FxPro analysts in a research note. |
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| 3. Companies to watch -- Foxconn, Volkswagen and more: President Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Apple supplier Foxconn plans to build a big plant in the U.S. and is considering putting it in Wisconsin. |
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| Foxconn, however, told CNNMoney "it is not currently possible to confirm the locations for those potential investments or estimates the number of jobs that might be created." |
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| Trump also said Tuesday that Apple CEO Tim Cook has "promised" to build "three big plants, beautiful plants" in the U.S. |
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| Apple did not respond to requests for comment. |
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| Volkswagen's supervisory board will meet Wednesday following allegations that it may have participated in a cartel with other car manufacturers in Germany. |
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| European antitrust officials, who are responsible for ensuring that big business plays fair, have said they are assessing "information on this matter." |
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| Drug distributor McKesson is going to be facing a big protest at its annual shareholder meeting. McKesson's CEO John Hammergren has earned $692 million in the past 10 years. The Teamsters union says that's too much and asserts that McKesson, as a distributor of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, has played a role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. |
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| The union holds more than $30 million worth of McKesson shares. |
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| The company responded with this statement: "We take our responsibility to help manage the safety and integrity of the pharmaceutical supply chain extremely seriously and are committed to maintaining -- and continuously improving -- strong programs designed to detect and prevent opioid diversion." |
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| Health insurers will be in focus after Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to advance to floor debate on their efforts to re-write health care policy. |
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| But hours later, the Senate decisively rejected a Republican proposal to repeal-and-replace Obamacare. |
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| The main premarket mover is Advanced Micro Devices. Shares are up about 10% after reporting well-received earnings. |
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| 4. U.K. GDP: Britain's economy grew by just 0.3% in the second quarter, confirming fears of a slowdown as the country prepares to exit the European Union. |
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| The quarter-on-quarter growth rate represents a mild improvement from the 0.2% expansion posted in the first three months of 2017. But there were few positive signs. |
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| "The economy has experienced a notable slowdown in the first half of this year," the Office of National Statistics said. |
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| 5. Global market overview: Wall Street could see new records on Wednesday. |
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| U.S. stock futures are mostly pointing up after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit new all-time highs on Tuesday. |
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| Most European markets rose in early trading, though the gains were rather modest. Asian markets ended the day with mostly positive results. |
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| The metals market is stealing the show as copper and nickel prices surge by 2.5% and 3.4%, respectively. Copper prices were at a two-year high. |
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