Futures down as Middle East conflict sparks run for safe-haven assets

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Israel’s troops were still fighting to recapture towns from Hamas gunmen who killed 700 Israelis and seized hostages, even as the country responded with its heaviest ever bombardment of the Gaza strip, killing more than 400 people.

Israel has acknowledged that the battle was taking longer than expected, more than two days after the militants burst across the fence from Gaza on a deadly rampage.

U.S Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States will send multiple military ships and aircraft closer to Israel as a show of support.

Traditional safe-haven assets including gold and the U.S. dollar gained, while the growing uncertainty pushed crude prices higher.

“The scale of the attack and loss of lives imply that the response is likely to last for a few months, potentially till year-end,” said Mohit Kumar, chief economist Europe at Jefferies.

At 5:04 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 152 points, or 0.45%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 23.5 points, or 0.54%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 96.5 points, or 0.64%.

U.S. energy companies, including Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), jumped between 2.1% and 3.7% in premarket trading as oil prices rose more than $3 a barrel.

Defense companies Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), RTX GD) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) advanced between 4.1% and 5%.

Megacap stocks, including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), dipped 0.3% to 2.1%.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 had posted weekly gains on Friday as mixed jobs reports kept investors on edge around the Federal Reserve’s interest rate outlook.

Data would take center stage once again this week with September producer price index and consumer price inflation readings due on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Later in the day, investors will also keep an eye on speeches by Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr.

Over the weekend, Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman reiterated that inflation continues to be too high despite “considerable” progress in lowering it, and the U.S. central bank will likely need to further tighten monetary policy.

Focus will also be on the upcoming quarterly earnings from major banks including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo, Citigroup (NYSE:C) as well as asset manager BlackRock (NYSE:BLK).

Among individual stocks, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dipped 1.6% as data showed the company’s China-made EV sales volume for September decreased 10.9% from a year ago.

Shares of cancer drugmaker Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRTX) were down 2% after Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) said on Sunday it will acquire the company in a up to $5.8 billion deal.