Fed officials, due to meet next week, have said plans to wind down bond purchases and other stimulus that is boosting stock prices might be accelerated if necessary to cool inflation that hit a 30-year high in October.Traders were "potentially taking some risks off the table" while they wait for November consumer price data, said Yeap Jun Rong of IG in a report.
On Wall Street, the future for the benchmark S&P 500 was 0.1% higher. That for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up less than 0.1%. In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index retreated 0.2% to 3,666.35 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 1% to 28,437.77. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong declined 1.1% to 23,995.72.India's Sensex lost 0.4% to 58,556.36. New Zealand and Jakarta gained while Singapore declined.
Technology stocks and a mix of retailers and other companies that rely on direct consumer spending weighed the most on the S&P 500. Chipmaker Nvidia fell 3.4%, while Tesla slid 6.1% for the biggest drop in the index.Health-related stocks rose. Pfizer, which is touting the potential benefits of a vaccine booster against the Omicron variant, rose 1.3%.