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US stock index futures were lower on Wednesday after Greece’s creditors rejected some proposals from the country and doubts returned if Athens will be able to avert defaulting on its loans.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has attacked the stance of “certain’’ creditors as “strange’’ because they rejected the proposals presented by Athens to bridge a budget gap, a government official said without referring to specific proposals or which of the three institutions Tsipras was blaming for the deadlock.
Eurogroup meet
Tsipras will meet the heads of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission in Brussels before a meeting of euro zone finance ministers at 1300 p.m. ET (1700 GMT).
Greece needs fresh funds to avoid defaulting on a $1.8 billion debt repayment to the IMF on June 30.
GDP growth data
The US Commerce Department is expected to release its final gross domestic product figure, showing the economy shrank 0.2 per cent in the first quarter. Last month, the government had slashed its estimate to show GDP shrunk at a 0.7 per cent annual rate instead of growing at 0.2 per cent as it estimated earlier. The data is expected at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Investors have been keeping a keen eye on economic data to see if the US economy has recovered from a slow start at the beginning of the year. The Federal Reserve has said it remains data-dependent and expects to raise rates when it sees a sustained rebound in the economy.
Netflix shares were up 2.4 per cent at $697 in premarket trading, a day after the company’s board approved a seven-for-one stock split. Netflix shares have almost doubled this year.
Lennar rose 1.43 per cent to $49.70 after the second-largest US homebuilder reported a better-than-expected 33 per cent jump in quarterly profit as it sold more homes at higher prices.
Ford Motor was up 1.1 per cent at $15.46 after the company said it will test new car-sharing programmes with US and UK partners as part of a strategy to embrace alternatives to traditional car ownership.
Futures snapshot at 6:54 a.m. ET:
S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.25 points, or 0.2 percent, with 133,559 contracts traded.
Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 9.25 points, or 0.2 percent, on volume of 16,339 contracts.
Dow e-minis were down 53 points, or 0.29 percent, with 16,856 contracts changing hands.
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