Investing.com-- U.S. stock index futures steadied in evening deals on Thursday as Wall Street was slapped with profit-taking even as inflation showed signs of cooling, with focus now turning to the second quarter earnings season.Consumer price index inflation read softer than expected for June, which saw investors ramp up bets that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates from September.
But the softer inflation, coupled with other middling readings on the U.S. economy in recent weeks sparked some concerns that growth was cooling.But despite increased optimism over interest rate cuts, Wall Street indexes retreated from record highs on Thursday, hit chiefly by outsized losses in technology shares.
Tech was the biggest weight on Wall Street on Thursday, after driving a stellar stock rally over the past few weeks.Market focus was now squarely on the second-quarter earnings season, which is set to begin in earnest with a slew of key bank earnings on Friday.Focus will largely be on whether corporate earnings were impacted by high interest rates and sticky inflation, which were seen causing some cooling in the U.S. economy in the second quarter.