By Devik Jain
(Reuters) – Nasdaq futures jumped 1% on Wednesday as technology stocks led a rebound after concerns about inflation and rising Treasury yields drove one of Wall Street’s worst selloff of this year.
Shares of heavyweights Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple and Google-parent Alphabet Inc rose between 1% and 1.3% in premarket trading.
Oil firms including Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp dipped as a rally in crude prices petered out. The S&P energy sector has gained 3.9% so far this week and is on track for its best monthly performance since February.
U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Tuesday in a broad sell-off, with the benchmark S&P 500 index logging its biggest one-day percentage drop since May and the Nasdaq posting its worst daily selloff since March.
The S&P 500 index is also set to break its seven-month winning streak as fears about China Evergrande’s default, potential higher corporate taxes and a sooner-than expected tapering of monetary support by the Federal Reserve clouded investor sentiment in what is usually a seasonally weak month.
The Fed last week signaled it could tighten its monetary policy in the months ahead amid signs of a choppy recovery in the world’s largest economy, triggering a rally in bond yields that hit interest rate-sensitive tech stocks.
At 6:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 203 points, or 0.59%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 32 points, or 0.74%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 147.25 points, or 1%.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Republicans for a second day in a row blocked a bid by President Joe Biden’s Democrats to head off a potentially crippling U.S. credit default, as partisan tensions rattled an economy recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon also cautioned a U.S. default would be “potentially catastrophic” event.
Among stocks, Boeing Co rose 2.5% after it said 737 MAX test flight for China’s aviation regulator last month was successful and the planemaker hopes a two-year grounding will be lifted this year.
(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
