U.S. stock futures tread water as traders wait for Boeing, Coke, GM results

U.S. stock futures showed little change early Wednesday, as investors held off on making big bets as they waited for another round of earnings reports.

Boeing Co. BA, +0.33% , Coca-Cola Co. KO, +0.71% and General Motors Co. GM, +0.72% are among the big names slated to reveal their quarterly results before the stock market’s open.

S&P 500 futures ESZ5, +0.42% inched higher by 2.90 points, or 0.1%, to 2,023.50, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YMZ5, +0.37% edged up by 19 points, or 0.1%, to 17,126. Nasdaq 100 futures NQZ5, +0.41% added 2.75 points, or less than 0.1%, to 4,427.50.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.14% and Dow DJIA, -0.08% both closed 0.1% lower, while the Nasdaq COMP, -0.50% fell 0.5%. The three benchmarks all snapped three-day win streaks, leaving them roughly flat for the week after two days of trading.

Wall Street on Tuesday “did not feel particularly comfortable in its own skin. The quality of earnings continued in many cases to disappoint,” said David Buik, market commentator at Panmure Gordon & Co., in a note on Wednesday.

Movers and shakers: Shares in Yahoo Inc. YHOO, -2.00% shares could come under pressure after the Web pioneer late Tuesday warned about the holiday quarter, and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. CMG, -1.81% also could see selling after its disappointing results.

KLA-Tencor Corp. shares KLAC, +1.39% are likely to jump following news that Lam Research Corp. LRCX, +3.53% plans to acquire it in a deal valued at about $10.6 billion and billed as creating a “premier semiconductor equipment company.”

After the market’s close, eBay Inc. EBAY, -0.55% and American Express Co. AXP, -0.06% are among the companies expected to post quarterly earnings.

Other markets: Oil futures CLX5, -0.11% fell ahead of a producers’ meeting, as gold futures GCZ5, -0.23% and a key dollar index DXY, +0.03% also pulled back.

European stocks SXXP, +0.02% lost ground Wednesday, and Asian stocks showed mixed action, with Japan’s Nikkei NIK, +1.91% rising while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -3.06% dropped.

U.S. economic news: There are no top-tier U.S. economic reports slated for release on Wednesday.

At 1:30 p.m. Eastern, Federal Reserve Gov. Jerome Powell is due to moderate a panel on repo markets, liquidity and the Treasury market at a regulatory conference.