Futures Slide On Rising Recession Fears

U.S. stock index futures fell sharply on Thursday, with growth shares taking the biggest hit, after the Federal Reserve's biggest rate increase since 1994 to tame rising prices fanned worries of a recession.

Mega-cap firms Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp fell 3% each in premarket trading, with Nasdaq 100 futures plunging by a similar margin.

The Fed on Wednesday matched market expectations by hiking interest rates by 75 basis points. It also projected a slowing economy and rising unemployment in the coming months in the face of the worst inflation in 40 years.

"We view it as increasingly likely that a recession and higher unemployment will be necessary to tame inflation: with such a gloomy macro picture looming over the markets," said Geir Lode, head of global equities at Federated Hermes Limited.

Following the Fed meeting, Wells Fargo said the odds of a recession now stand at more than 50%.

The Swiss National Bank raised its policy interest rate for the first time in 15 years in a surprise move on Thursday, while the Bank of England hiked borrowing costs by quarter of a percentage point.

The S&P 500 is down 20.5% year-to-date and is in a bear market as investors grapple with a sharp slowdown in growth. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 indexes were set to mark their 10th weekly decline in past 11 weeks.

At 6:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 601 points, or 1.96%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 91.25 points, or 2.41%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 330.75 points, or 2.84%.

On the equities front, Morgan Stanley led losses among major U.S. banks with a 2% slide.

Twitter Inc firmed 2.6% ahead of Elon Musk's meeting with its employees after a report said he was expected to reiterate his desire to own the social media company.