Stock Market Today: Tech leads stocks higher with Fed on deck; Google leaps

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U.S. equity futures powered higher Monday, while the dollar held steady against its global peers, as investors braced for a key series of central-bank interest-rate decisions this week, including the Federal Reserve, amid renewed global inflation risks.

The Fed's two-day policy meeting, which ends Wednesday in Washington, will highlight a week where no fewer than six major global central banks will unveil new rate decisions as the global economy finds renewed strength and inflation pressures resurface. 

Global oil prices in fact hit a fresh four-month high Monday after data from China showed both industrial production and retail sales topped forecasts for the first two months of the year. Those reports followed stronger-than-expected export and inflation figures last week.

Brent crude contracts for May delivery, the global benchmark, were marked 63 cents higher at $85.96 per barrel while copper prices in Shanghai rose to just over $10,000 per ton.

Investors are expecting the Fed to hold its benchmark lending rate steady at between 5.25% and 5.5%, but fresh economic and inflation projections could trim its full-year rate-cut forecasts and test the market's assumption that the first of those reductions will arrive in June. 

Benchmark 10-year-note yields were moving higher into the New York trading session and were last marked at a four week high of 4.311%, while 2-year notes were pegged at 4.715%.

The U.S. dollar index, meanwhile, was marked 0.02% lower at 103.412 against a basket of six major global currency peers.

On Wall Street, tech stocks look set to power market gains again Monday as AI-chip maker Nvidia  (NVDA)  kicks off its three day GTC Developer Conference in California and reports suggest Apple  (AAPL)  will use Alphabet's  (GOOG)  Gemini AI technology to power its iPhone features.

Futures tied to the Nasdaq suggest a 221 point opening bell gain for the tech benchmark, which has risen 6.41% so far this year. Alphabet is called 4.8% higher and Nvidia is looking at a 2.8% gain.

A light calendar of earnings this week will likely keep the S&P 500 focused on Wednesday's Fed decision. But a busy slate of updates on Thursday will effectively close out the fourth-quarter reporting season with numbers from FedEx  (FDX) , Nike  (NKE)  and Lululemon  (LULU) .

Overall, collective S&P 500 earnings are forecast to rise 10% from a year ago to $476 billion, with the pace of growth slowing to around 5% over the first three months of this year.

Futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 suggest a 42 point opening bell gain, while those linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average are priced for an 80 point advance.

In overseas markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 returned to its winning ways Monday with a 2.67% gain ahead of tomorrow's Bank of Japan policy meeting, which could include the country's first rate hike in more than 17 years. 

The regionwide MSCI ex-Japan benchmark, meanwhile, rose 0.67% into the close of trading following the better-than-expected set of economic data from China.

In Europe, data from Eurostat confirmed the pace of February inflation at 0.6% on the month, and 2.6% on the year. The pound held at 1.2726 against the U.S dollar ahead of a Bank of England rate decision later in the week.

The regionwide Stoxx 600 index was marked 0.02% higher in early Frankfurt trading, while Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.14% in London.

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