Stock futures opened slightly lower Wednesday evening after a selloff during the regular trading day, driven by jitters over a potential shift in monetary policy that might remove some of the stimulus underpinning equity markets.
Contracts on the S&P 500 ticked lower. Earlier, both the S&P 500 and Dow dropped more than 1% to post a back-to-back session of gains.
Shares of Robinhood (HOOD) dropped more than 8% after the trading platform delivered its first earnings report since going public, with the print pointing to a revenue slowdown in the current period due to seasonal weakness in third-quarter trading. Cisco Systems (CSCO), a Dow component, also saw shares drop after its sales and profit guidance disappointed against some lofty Wall Street expectations.
Equity markets as a whole came under pressure on Wednesday on the back of the Federal Reserve's July meeting minutes. These suggested central bankers were moving forward with their debate over the timing and scope of the tapering of their crisis-era asset purchase program, with most participants expecting the U.S. economy to make enough of a recovery to meet the "substantial further progress" necessary to trigger a slowdown in purchases by later this year.