NEW YORK City – US stocks futures slipped on Friday, a day after Wall Street roared back to record its biggest one-day rise in two months, as investors grappled with fresh trade tensions and political turmoil in Britain and Italy.
Despite a turbulent week that started with the three main indexes having their worst one-day percentage fall of 2019 on renewed trade war fears, the benchmark S&P 500 has managed to hold onto small gains as bargain hunters picked up beaten down stocks.
Worries of the economy slipping into a recession are back, as the trade war between the United States and China shows little signs of easing, especially after a symbolic drop in China’s currency earlier this week.
The latest concern was a report that Washington was delaying a decision about allowing some trade between US companies and China’s telecom equipment maker Huawei again, pressuring chipmakers and other tariff sensitive stocks.
Micron Technology, Nvidia Corp and Intel Corp fell between one percent and two percent in premarket trading, while Apple Inc slid 0.9 percent.
European shares were sharply lower as Italy’s ruling League party Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini declared the governing coalition to be unworkable, while a report said Prime Minister Boris Johnson was preparing to hold an election in the days after “October 31 Brexit deadline.”
At 6:57 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 137 points, or 0.52percent. S&P 500 e-minis were down 17 points, or 0.58 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 61.25 points, or 0.79 percent.
Investors looking for safety in turbulent times helped the defensive sectors, with consumer staples, utilities and real estate indexes outperforming the broader S&P 500 this week.
Following a near 12 percent jump on Thursday, Symantec Corp. gained 2.5 percent after chipmaker Broadcom Inc. confirmed it would buy the antivirus software maker’s enterprise security unit for $10.7 billion in cash.
Nektar Therapeutics shares plunged 34.1 percent after the drug developer flagged manufacturing issues with its experimental cancer drug bempeg. (Reuters)
