U.S. stock index futures slipped on Wednesday, with investors avoiding big bets as they awaited more clues on the health of the economy and the outlook for interest rate cuts after the Federal Reserve kicked off its policy easing cycle a week ago.

Market Snapshot

At 7:51 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 13 points, or 0.03%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 4.50 points, or 0.08% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 40.75 points, or 0.20%.

Pre-Market Movers

Chinese ADRs - Chinese ADRs dropped in premarket trading as China stimulus-led optimism fades. The rally in Chinese stocks sparked by yesterday ’ s announcement from China ’ s central bank of a wide-ranging stimulus package faded as investors began to doubt that the measures would be sufficient to revive the world ’ s second-largest economy. Alibaba, PDD Holdings, Baidu, and Li Auto fell 3%; JD.com and NIO fell 4%; XPeng fell 5%.

Apple - Apple shares were down 1% in premarket trading as data showed sales in China fell in August.

Tesla - Tesla stock dropped 0.6% in premarket trading Wednesday after a 7% surge in the previous two trading days. Third-quarter deliveries should be next to send shares up or down materially.

General Motors, Ford, Rivian - General Motors declined 3.1%, Ford was down 1.7% and Rivian dropped 3% after shares of both auto makers were downgraded by analysts at Morgan Stanley. GM was moved from Equal-weight to Underweight, while its price target was cut from $47 to $42. Ford and Rivian stocks saw the same downgrades, with their price targets lowered from $16 to $12 and from $16 to $13, respectively.

Trump Media & Technology - Trump Media & Technology Group Inc. ’ s stock was up 5.2% in premarket trading on Wednesday as a two-day deadline passed with no fresh filings from insiders selling stock.

Stitch Fix - Stitch Fix dropped 27.7% after the personal styling company reported a wider-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter loss as revenue sank to $319.6 million, down from $364.7 million a year earlier.   Stitch Fix said it ended the quarter with active clients of 2.51 million, a decrease of 20% from a year earlier.

SAP SE - SAP was down 2.7% in U.S. trading after a report said the German software company and others werebeing investigatedby U.S. officials for potentially conspiring to overcharge government agencies over the course of a decade. Justice Department lawyers since at least 2022 have been looking at whether SAP illegally conspired with product reseller Carahsoft Technology to fix prices on sales to the U.S. military and other parts of the government, according to the Bloomberg report, which cites federal court records filed in Baltimore. The court records also showed prosecutors were examining the role of other software resellers and a unit of   Accenture.

KB Home - KB Home was falling 6.5% after the home builder reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $2.04 a share, rising from a year earlier but missing Wall Street estimates of $2.06. Revenue rose 10% to $1.75 billion and beat estimates of $1.73 billion. The average selling price in the period rose 3% to $480,900, and homes delivered were up 8%. KB Home said it expects fiscal-year housing revenue of between $6.85 billion and $6.95 billion, up from its prior guidance of between $6.7 billion and $6.9 billion, as demand has begun strengthening amid a recent decline in mortgage rates.

Progress - Third-quarter earnings at Progress Software topped analysts ’ estimates and the company raised its profit and revenue outlook for the fiscal year. Progress Software said it expects adjusted earnings of $4.75 to $4.85 a share in the fiscal year on revenue of $745 million to $755 million. The company previously forecast adjusted earnings of $4.70 to $4.80 share on revenue of $725 million to $735 million. The stock gained 7.5%.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise - Hewlett Packard Enterprise was rising 2.2% after shares of the information technology hardware and services company were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays and the price target on the stock was boosted to $24 from $20.

Micron - Micron was rising 0.4% in premarket trading ahead of the release of the memory-chip maker ’ s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. Wall Street expects profit of 82 cents a share from Micron on revenue of $7.65 billion, compared with a year-earlier loss of $1.31 a share on revenue of $4.01 billion. Adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter were estimated at $1.11 a share.

Market News

Meta Platforms Kicks Off Its Connect Developers Conference

Meta's annual developer Connect conference kicks off on Wednesday.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote starts at 1 p.m. ET and will be streamed live on Facebook. He is expected to share the company's vision for artificial intelligence and Meta's latest product announcements.

Technology media sites like The Verge predict Meta may announce a less expensive version of its Quest 3 VR headset and an update of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses at the two-day conference.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Sold $713 Million of Stock. He's Done — for Now

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang just wrapped up the sale of six million shares of the chip maker, completing a trading plan he adopted earlier in the year — and grossing more than $700 million.

Huang sold shares from June 14 through Sept. 13, in transactions for as few as 70 shares and as many as 75,300, and at prices as low as $91.72 on Aug. 5 and as high as $140.24 on June 20.

In all, he grossed $713 million through stock sales executed by his Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, an average price of $118.83 each. The plan was set to be effective through March 2025, but it sold all of the allotted shares six months before expiration.

Huang ’ s plan sold shares from a personal account that now owns 75.4 million Nvidia shares, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also owns 786 million company shares through trusts and partnerships.