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U.S. stock futures pointed to losses on the last day of trading for July, with technology stocks set to lead the way lower after disappointing results from Amazon.com.
What are major indexes doing?
-
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
-0.33%
were down 152 points, or 0.4%, to 34,824. -
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
-0.70%
fell 40 points, or 0.9%, to 4,372. -
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
-1.14%
slid 210 points, or 1.4%, to 14,827.
On Thursday, the Dow
DJIA,
rose 153.60 points, or 0.4%, to close at 35,084.53, The S&P 500
SPX,
finished at 4,419.15, up 18.51 points, or 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
advanced 15.68 points, or 0.1%, to end at 14,778.26.
Stocks finished higher on Thursday even amid economic data that showed gross domestic product growing at an annualized pace of 6.5% in the second quarter that fell short of forecasts. Investors also shook off a lukewarm debut for shares of commission-free trading app Robinhood Markets
HOOD,
What’s driving the market?
A risk-off stance by investors on Friday was spreading from Asia, where the Hong Kong Hang Seng
HSI,
and China CSI 300 indexes
000300,
were once again on the losing foot, after taking a break from a string of losses on Thursday. European stocks
SXXP,
also fell.
Technology stocks were set to lead markets lower on Friday, with Amazon.com
AMZN,
shares sliding 6% in premarket after second-quarter results showed a miss on sales and the forecast for the third quarter suggesting a slowdown in e-commerce activity is set to continue.
“Revenues were still in excess of $110bn at $113bn, while sales for Q3 were expected to be equally as good. They just weren’t good enough,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, in a note to clients.
Energy giants Exxon Mobil
XOM,
and Chevron
CVX,
and industrial giant Caterpillar
CAT,
are due to report ahead of the market open, in what has been a busy week for earnings that included results from major technology companies including Apple
AAPL,
Alphabet
GOOGL,
and Microsoft
MSFT,
Friday’s data includes personal and consumer spending income and core inflation, along with a University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey.
COVID-19 concerns may not be far away for investors after an internal document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed to increasing worries by officials over the fast-spreading delta variant. First reported by The Washington Post, the data said the variant may be as easily spread from vaccinated as unvaccinated individuals and was as “transmissible as chickenpox.”
