Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures slipped on Thursday, a day after a crushing selloff in mega-cap tech stocks steered the indexes to their biggest drop since 2022, with investors looking out for a burst of earnings releases and key economic data.
At 6:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 36 points, or 0.09%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 14.25 points, or 0.26%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 79.75 points, or 0.42%.
Lackluster earnings from Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG, NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) soured investor sentiment towards megacaps on Wednesday, knocking back the high-momentum ‘Magnificent Seven’ group of tech stocks. All three major Wall Street indexes closed at multi-week lows, with the Nasdaq ending 3.6% lower.
Megacaps added to their losses in premarket trading on Thursday, with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Tesla, Alphabet, and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) all in the red.
While the group of heavyweight stocks has powered the stock market to all-time highs this year, Wednesday’s selloff following the first set of second-quarter tech earnings was a wake-up call for investors, adding weight to fears that these stocks might be over-stretched and in for more turbulence.
“One could argue that given the moves and flows we saw last week, the platform was already set, and investors were already questioning their position in big tech,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, wrote in a note.
“Throw in clear disappointment in Alphabets Q3 capital expenditure guidance, and outright poor numbers from Tesla … and we can see the effect in MAG7, semiconductors, and the AI-related plays.”
Futures tracking the Russell 2000 edged 0.1% lower after the small-cap index slumped over 2% in Wednesday’s broad-based market decline, even as investors now see more value in shifting to lagging sectors.
The rest of the “Magnificent Seven” cohort reports earnings from next week, with the focus shifting to a slew of economic data during the day — durable goods, second-quarter GDP, and weekly jobless claims.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index data, due on Friday, will be a crucial test for bets of an early start to Federal Reserve rate cuts after the recent trend of easing inflation and some weakness in the labor market.
Market participants are also pricing in around three rate cuts by December this year, according to LSEG data. Bets of a 25-basis-points cut in September fell to about 77% from 90% the previous day, as per CME’s FedWatch Tool.
Signaling growing investor unease, the CBOE market volatility index jumped to its highest since April 19.
Semiconductor stocks also broadly fell, led by a 9.4% tumble in Teradyne after the chip-testing equipment maker forecast lower-than-expected third-quarter revenue.
Ford Motor (NYSE: F) dropped 13.3% after its second-quarter adjusted profit missed estimates by a wide margin as the automaker continues to battle costly quality issues and an EV business that is weighing on its bottom line.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) climbed 4.4% after beating second-quarter revenue estimates and raising its annual growth forecast for its software business, while chemical maker Dow lost 4.4% after missing profit estimates.
KLA (NASDAQ: KLAC) rose 2.7% after forecasting revenue and profit for its fiscal first quarter above expectations, while Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) slumped 22% after missing second-quarter revenue estimates.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) rose 3.7% after surpassing estimates for quarterly results.
(Source: ReutersReuters)
