Dow Futures Fall 280 Pts; Tech Giants Head Up Earnings Deluge By

© Reuters.

By Peter Nurse

-- U.S. stocks are MT4 platformseen opening lower Monday at the start of a week that includes preliminary data on first quarter growth as well as earnings reports from a number of tech titans.

At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the Dow futures contract was down 280 points, or 0.8%, S&P 500 futures traded 40 points, or 0.9%, lower and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 120 points, or 0.9%.

The three main Wall Street indices have seen selling over the last month as investors adjusted for the Federal Reserve’s hawkish pivot, with Chairman Jerome Powell last week largely cementing a 50-basis-point rate hike at the central bank’s next meeting in early May.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Friday almost 1000 points, or 2.8%, lower, its worst day since October 2020, resulting in its fourth consecutive losing week. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 2.8% on Friday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6%.

The U.S. is scheduled to release preliminary first-quarter growth figures later this week against a background of concerns over whether the Fed can engineer a soft landing for the economy as it tries to curb soaring inflation.

The GDP number, released on Thursday, is expected to slow sharply to 1.1% from 6.9% in the final quarter of 2021.

Almost 180 companies listed on the S&P 500 are due to report results in the coming week, including the four largest U.S. companies by market capitalization: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL).

First quarter expectations are muted, with the disappointing Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) subscriber numbers exacerbating concerns about earnings in the tech sector.

Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) heads up the earnings slate Monday, but the likes of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), Otis (NYSE:OTIS) and Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR) are also scheduled to report.

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) will also be in the spotlight following reports that the social media platform’s board has started discussions with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk about a possible sale. If confirmed, that would represent an abrupt change of mind given the company was very quick to turn down Musk’s $43 billion bid last week.

Oil prices slumped to near two-week lows Monday on increased concerns that the spreading COVID outbreak in China, the world’s largest importer of crude, will stunt demand.

By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 4.5% lower at $97.4 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 4.4% to $101.52. Both benchmarks dropped around 5% last week, and have now fallen to levels last seen on April 12.

Additionally, gold futures fell 1.2% to $1,911.20/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.6% lower at 1.0727.

Statement: The content of this article does not represent the views of FTI website. The content is for reference only and does not constitute investment suggestions. Investment is risky, so you should be careful in your choice! If it involves content, copyright and other issues, please contact us and we will make adjustments at the first time!