(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures remained nearly flat in the early hours of Monday, just ahead of the discussions about raising the debt ceiling after a brief pause late last week, while shares of Micron Technology Inc fell following China’s ban on its chips.
Hopes that a deal would be struck sometime over the weekend to raise the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit helped Wall Street’s main indexes end the last week with gains.
President Joe Biden and House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet for talks on Monday after the two leaders held a phone call on Sunday that both sides described as positive.
Less than two weeks remain before a June 1 deadline after which the Treasury warned that the federal government will struggle to pay its debts, triggering a default that would cause chaos in financial markets and spike interest rates.
Among early decliners, chipmaker Micron’s shares fell 6% in premarket trading after China barred it from selling memory chips to key domestic industries, also ramping up trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
“We expected this and anticipate more moves from both sides and their allies as the U.S. seeks to slow China’s industrial espionage and China retaliates,” analysts at Citi wrote in a note, calling it the latest salvo in the U.S.-China trade war.
Shares of other semiconductor companies also fell, with Intel Corp, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc down between 0.6% and 1.0%.
At 5:41 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 1 points, or -0%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 1 points, or 0.02%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 6.5 points, or 0.05%.
Meta Platforms Inc slipped 1.1% after the European Union privacy regulators slapped a $1.3 billion fine on the company for sending user information to the U.S.
(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)
