US futures nudge lower on the day, tech shares lead declines
Things are starting to look a bit dicey in the equities market today, with US futures extending the drop from Monday. S&P 500 futures are down 0.5% while Nasdaq futures are down 1.1% currently, as tech shares lead declines so far on the day.
The retreat in the broader tech sentiment will act as a bit of a distraction to key earnings from major retailers this week. In case you missed it:
But for today, tech shares are back under the microscope as we also see equities come under pressure amid higher bond yields. 10-year yields in the US are scaling up to 4.74% while 30-year yields are moving up to 5.33% on the day. The latter is pushing to fresh highs since 2007, as market players continue to weigh up the inflation outlook amid the situation in the Middle East.
US-Iran tensions continue to stay heated with Trump even threatening to bomb Oman now, with him saying that they are “getting in the way” of a deal.
As such, that’s keeping investors on edge and stifling the mood in the equities space.
Here’s how some of the more prominent names are faring in overnight trade in Wall Street:
- Sandisk -5.7%
- Western Digital -5.2%
- Seagate -4.5%
- Micron -4.2%
- Applied Materials -3.6%
- Intel -3.3%
- AMD -2.3%
- Nvidia -1.8%
- Tesla -1.4%
- Meta -0.7%
- Amazon -0.6%
- Alphabet -0.5%
- Microsoft +0.2%
- Apple +0.3%
Memory and chipmakers are again taking a bit of a knock, and so are semiconductors. So, it circles back to the narrative that has been bugging the AI trade for a while i.e. bloating capital expenditure.
That continues to be the key issue but as we’ve seen with Q2 earnings, tech firms managed to pass that test at the balance. However, it doesn’t mean that the issue will be going away any time soon.
For now, it’s just a minor retreat all in all after the surging run higher in early August. So, we’ll have to wait and see if there will be more to it in due time.
