U.S. stock index futures declined on Wednesday, following a tech selloff on Wall Street, as investors geared up for more retail earnings and a crucial Federal Reserve symposium later this week.
The tech sector was behind much of the market recovery from the April selloff, but investors have started to take stock of the elevated valuations, sending the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to their worst day in more than two weeks on Tuesday.
Market Snapshot
At 7:35 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 50 points, or 0.11%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 11.5 points, or 0.18%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 69 points, or 0.29%.
Pre-Market Movers
Palantir Technologies fell 3% in premarket trading. The company, which sells artificial-intelligence software to manage and analyze large amounts of data, closed down 9.35% on Tuesday, its fifth consecutive trading day of declines. It was the stock’s worst percentage decrease since June 27, when it dropped 9.37%. Palantir, which trades at more than 200 times projected earnings, has closed lower for six of the past seven trading days as investors have unloaded hot—and expensive—AI stocks. Coming into Wednesday, Palantir has risen 109% so far this year.
Target posted stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings but the retailer declined 9.98% after it announced that longtime veteran and current Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke will succeed CEO Brian Cornell on Feb. 1, disappointing investors who were hoping for an external hire to bring in a fresh perspective.
Estee Lauder‘s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings matched analysts’ expectations but the stock was sinking 7% after the cosmetics company issued a fiscal-year sales forecast that missed forecasts.
Lowe’s rose 4.5% after the home-improvement retailer reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings, raised fiscal-year sales guidance, and said it was purchasing Foundation Building Materials for about $8.8 billion.
Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel were marginally lower in premarket trading. Nvidia is expected to report quarterly results on Aug. 27.
Deepening concerns of government interference with companies, sources said the Trump administration was looking into taking equity stakes in chip companies in exchange for grants under the CHIPS Act - just weeks after signing unprecedented revenue-sharing deals with Nvidia and AMD.
Home builder Toll Brothers reported fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of $3.73 a share on home sales revenue of $2.88 billion, topping Wall Street estimates on both metrics, according to FactSet. The company said it delivered 2,959 homes in the period. It expects to deliver 11,200 units in the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, which at the lower end of its previously issued guidance. The stock fell 2.7%.
Alcon shares fell 12%. The eye-care company’s second-quarter revenue of $2.58 billion missed consensus expectations and it trimmed its fiscal-year revenue guidance, saying it anticipates revenue of $10.3 billion to $10.4 billion, lower than previous guidance of $10.4 billion to $10.5 billion.
La-Z-Boy stock tumbled 24% after its fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings missed analysts’ forecasts and the furniture maker said it expects second-quarter revenue of $510 million to $530 million. Analysts had been forecasting revenue for the second quarter of about $532 million.
Baidu rose 0.8% in U.S. trading after the Chinese search-engine provider’s profit fell less than expected in the second quarter. The company reported adjusted net income of 6.5 billion yuan ($669 million), down 35% from a year earlier. Revenue slid 4% from a year ago to 32.4 billion yuan ($4.6 billion).
Market News
Fed Minutes Could Show Whether Waller and Bowman Had Company in Favoring Rate Cuts Soon
Last month's decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold interest rates unchanged prompted dissents from two top central bankers who wanted to lower rates to guard against further weakening of the job market, and a readout of that two-day gathering on Wednesday could show whether their concerns had started to resonate with other policymakers, perhaps reinforcing expectations that borrowing-cost reductions could begin next month.