Wall St Set To Open Lower After Chipmaker Micron's Dour Warning
Wall Street was set to open lower on Tuesday after a dismal forecast from Micron Technology dragged chip stocks lower, while investors remained cautious ahead of inflation data that will feed into the U.S. Federal Reserve's rate-hike plans.
A high inflation print on Wednesday, following last week's strong jobs numbers, will likely push the Fed to continue with jumbo rate hikes and weigh on a recent recovery in stocks.
Traders are expecting a 71.5% chance of the Fed raising interest rates by 75 basis points in September, its third such big hike. [IRPR]
Growth and technology stocks, whose valuations are sensitive to rising bond yields, slipped as U.S. Treasury yields climbed, with Alphabet Inc and Apple Inc down 0.6% each.
Micron Technology Inc fell 4.1% as the memory-chip maker cut fourth-quarter revenue forecast and warned of a negative free cash flow in the following three months as demand for chips used in personal computers and smartphones drop.
Peers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices fell 2.8% and 2.0%, respectively, extending the previous session's sharp declines after a revenue warning from Nvidia.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 23.9% so far this year, lagging the broader tech-heavy Nasdaq index.
"Markets are still treating these things as companies specific. If you get enough similar warnings, investors will start to treat it as sector specific and if that goes on further then it will become market specific," said Michael Shaoul, chief executive officer at Marketfield.
Shaoul said trading volumes remained lower due to summer and "it really doesn't take a lot of capital to push over yields or the S&P".
Despite a choppy recovery since mid-June, the benchmark index is down 13% this year after hitting a record high in early January as surging prices, hawkish central banks, geopolitical tensions weigh on sentiment.
Stronger-than-expected earnings from corporate America have been a positive, with 77.5% of S&P 500 companies beating earnings estimates, according to the Refinitiv data as of Friday.
At 08:44 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 2 points, or 0.01%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 9.5 points, or 0.23%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 81.5 points, or 0.62%.
Novavax slumped 31.3% after the drugmaker halved its annual revenue forecast as it does not expect further sales of its COVID-19 shot this year in the United States in the face of a global supply glut and soft demand.
© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024. All rights reserved.