The technology sector was poised to drag Wall Street down on Tuesday, with Nasdaq-100 index futures tumbling after a warning from Snapchat parent Snap, whose shares slumped in premarket.
How are stock-index futures trading?
- S&P 500 futures ES00 fell 48 points, or 1.2%, to 3,923
- Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00 slumped 242 points, or 0.7%, to 31,593
- Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00 tumbled 223 points, or 1.8%, to 11,812
U.S. stocks finished higher on Monday, with the Dow industrials surging 618.34 points, or 2%, to 31,880.24. The S&P 500 SPX rose 1.9% to 3,973.75 and the Nasdaq Composite COMP gained 1.6% to 11,535.27.
What’s driving the markets?
Monday’s climb for stocks followed the Dow industrials’ longest stretch of weekly losses since 1932 and a temporary dip by the S&P 500 index into bear-market territory last week.
But the Nasdaq Composite has led major indexes with year-to-date losses, down 26% and off 28% from its 52-week high of 16,057.44 reached Nov. 19, 2021. A drop of 20% or more from a recent high is one technical definition of a bear market.
Snap SNAP shares slumped 30% overnight after the social-media company warned late Monday that it would likely miss quarterly estimates as the economy has “deteriorated further and faster than anticipated.”
The warning weighed on other tech companies that rely on advertising as a revenue stream, with Meta Platforms Inc. FB losing nearly 9% in the late session, Pinterest Inc. PINS down 16%, and Twitter Inc. TWTR off around 4%.
“That’s stopped all the ‘worst is over’ pundits in their tracks. It highlights how fleeting swings in sentiment are now and that investors are running at the first sign of trouble,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, in a note to clients.
The technology sector has particularly suffered this year as shares of companies that shot to popularity during the pandemic have retrenched amid a shifting economy. Also extremely sensitive to interest rates, the sector has also been unraveling in anticipation of higher rates from the Federal Reserve.
“The market continues to turn itself inside out and back to front as it tries to decide if it has priced all of the impending rate hikes, soft landing or recession, inflation or stagflation, China, Ukraine, US summer driving season, supply chains, the list goes on. The result is a day-to-day chop-fest, and it seems clear that volatility is the winner,” said Halley.
Opinion: Snap’s warning of a weaker outlook sends ripples through tech stocks
Investors may be looking for more policy clues from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who is due to give opening remarks at a Native American development conference at 12:20 p.m. Eastern Time. New home sales for April are due at 10 a.m. Eastern.
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Among a handful of earnings results due Tuesday, retailers Best Buy Co. BBY and Nordstrom Inc. JWN are due to report ahead of the open, followed by software group Intuit Inc. INTU and diagnostics group Agilent Technologies Inc. A after the close.
Oil prices CL00 were also lower and Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y were falling, along with the dollar DXY, while gold GC00 was higher.
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