us stock futures inched lower as investors eyed the final stretch of a miserable year on tuesday the dow jones industrial average djia rose 38 points or 011 to 33242 the sp 500 spx declined 16 points or 04 to 3829 and the nasdaq composite comp dropped 145 points or 138 to 10353 the nasdaq composite was sitting near its lows of 2022 having lost 338 for the year to date with just three sessions left in 2022 traders were looking to greet wall street’s opening bell cautiously with equity futures inching back failed rallies – of various duration – are an established feature of bear markets and investors clearly remain wary of applying overly bullish bets as the year draws to a close especially given the holidaythinned trading indeed there are few fresh catalysts on wednesday to distract investors from the underlying theme that has driven markets for much of the year multidecade high inflation and how the central banks’ attempts to quash it will hurt the global economy and crimp company earnings the federal reserve has raised interest rates by 425 basis points since march and the sp 500 consequently is down 197 for the year one development of note this week was news that china was further relaxing its covid19 restrictions it’s a strategy deemed positive for the global economy but investors have focused on the inflationary potential of beijing’s move “if the chinese reopening story is positive for oil and commodity prices – and for the massively battered chinese stocks it’s bad news for global inflation” wrote ipek ozkardeskaya senior analyst at swissquote bank in a morning note “this is why we don’t see the us stocks gain on china reopening news…as the surge in chinese demand will certainly boost inflation through higher energy and commodity prices and in response to higher inflation the central banks will continue hiking rates” ozkardeskaya added us economic updates set for release on wednesday include the november pending home sales index due at 10 am eastern