US equity futures still in the red as CPI report looms-check out the S+P 500 index

The release of the August US CPI report is looming closer now (at 12.30pm GMT). That is the big US economic release of the week and it could be a game-changer in terms of what the markets expect from the Fed next week. An interest rate cut of 0.25% by the US Federal reserve is almost 100% guaranteed next Wednesday evening (September 18) at 6pm GMT. There are many in the markets that would advocate a deeper cut of 0.50% and this data today could help determine whether such an outlook gets consigned to the waste bin, or not. So what is expected today? The consensus for US consumer prices is for the core annualised rate to remain unchanged, at 3.2% last month. The suggestion here; is that anything below 3% and those 0.50% calls will grow a lot louder, but anything above say 3.4% and they might disappear altogether. Ahead of this the US equity markets are priced to open lower later on and this data will hit the screens before that opening. So, as such we could surely expect some price swings and perhaps even an altogether different opening outlook. The US equity futures are in the red right now and in percentage terms pretty evenly matched right now. The broadest measure is the S+P 500 index and that closed 24.47 points higher yesterday, at 5,495.22. It is currently priced to reopen at around 5,479