(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Tuesday after a slew of underwhelming earnings reports, while investors braced for a big interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve this week to tame surging prices.
Pfizer Inc slipped 0.7% in premarket trading as the drugmaker stuck to its annual sales forecasts for its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral pill Paxlovid.
Estee Lauder Cos Inc slumped 9.5% after the cosmetics maker cut its full-year sales forecast on fresh coronavirus restrictions in China and the crisis in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the U.S. central bank kicks off its two-day policy meeting later on Tuesday, with traders seeing a 93.9% chance of 50 basis points hike. Focus is squarely on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference on Wednesday for comments on the future path of interest rates and balance sheet reduction.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield hovered at 3%, having pushed above the key psychological level on Monday for the first time since late 2018. [US/]
Uncertainty around Fed’s policy move, mixed earnings from some Big Tech companies, the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the pandemic-related lockdown in China hammered Wall Street in April.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped nearly 13.3% last month, its worst monthly performance since October 2008 as richly-valued high growth stocks came under pressure from rising rates.
Amazon.com fell 0.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday, leading losses among megcap growth stocks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on retaliatory economic sanctions against the West that will forbid the export of products and raw materials to people and entities that it has sanctioned.
At 07:16 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 130 points, or 0.39%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 16.5 points, or 0.4%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 53.25 points, or 0.41%.
Biogen Inc dipped 3.0% after it reported a 26% fall in quarterly profit and said its Chief Executive Officer Michel Vounatsos will step down.
DuPont de Nemours fell 2.9% after the industrial materials maker cut its annual sales and earnings forecast to reflect higher raw material and logistics costs.
(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
