U.S. stock futures wavered on on Wednesday, with minutes from the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in focus.
Read MoreFOMC minutes a market diversion until Jackson Hole
Target shares fell in early New York trading after the discount retailer reported quarterly earnings beneath estimates and cut its forecast for the full year. Lowe's reported earnings that topped expectations prior to the opening bell, though the retailer trimmed its guidance for full-year sales growth. The reading comes a day after rival Home Depot posted strong earnings.
Shares of chipmakers including Fairchild Semiconductor International and Power Integrations gained in the wake of a Bloomberg report that cited people familiar with the matter as saying Germany's Infineon Technologies was close to a deal to purchase an American-based semiconductor company for about $2 billion.
Investors hope that the minutes, out at 2 p.m. ET, will shed further light on the Federal Reserve's exit strategy from its asset-purchasing program and ultra-low benchmark interest rate.
"The question which everyone will be asking is if the Fed is ready to increase the interest rate sooner than later," said AvaTrade Chief Market Analyst Naeem Aslam in a morning research note.
"Some hawkish members have certainly started beating the drums of an early increase; Philadelphia Fed's Charles Plosser is certainly the leader of that group."
With that in mind, Fed Chair Janet Yellen's testimony at the annual symposium on monetary policy in Jackson Hole, Wyoming will be in focus. Yellen is slated to open the gathering on Friday with a speech on labor markets.
"The FOMC minutes are telling us about what happened three weeks ago, and Jackson Hole, given its precedent for signaling meaningful policy shifts, has taken on this very elevated status," said Jeff Greenberg, senior economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
No major data is due on Wednesday bar the FOMC minutes.
Hewlett-Packard posts numbers after the market closes.
Wall Street closed higher on Tuesday as economic reports offered a benign view on inflation and a better-than-anticipated picture of the housing market. The Commerce Department reported that new home construction rose 15.7 percent in July on-month, while starts for volatile multi-family homes jumped 33 percent.
—By CNBC's Katy Barnato
Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect the fact that Hewlett-Packard will report earnings on Wednesday.