- Wall Street is set for more turmoil Wednesday, after weak Chinese trade data for March underlined the risks to the global economy from an escalation of the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
Dow futures were indicated down points 103 points, or 0.4% by 6:45 AM ET (1045 GMT), while S&P 500 futures lost 11.9 points or 0.4% and the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 futures was down 39 points or 0.5%.
The market has struggled to stabilize since U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed the U.S. intends to raise tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods from Friday. The move has left China’s trade negotiators, who arrive in Washington later today for a fresh round of negotiations, little leeway to make the concessions wanted by the U.S. without losing considerable face at home.
The negative mood music got louder overnight as Iran said it would start enriching uranium again in two months if China, Russia and the European signatories to a UN-backed 2015 agreement didn’t protect it from U.S. sanctions. It’s the second major challenge to U.S. authority in a week, after a fresh round of weapons tests by North Korea at the weekend.
Among early movers, Match Group (NASDAQ:MTCH) is set to open over 7% higher after a late earnings report on Tuesday that featured a strong performance by its Tinder dating site. By contrast, TripAdvisor (NASDAQ:TRIP) is set to open down over 7% after missing first-quarter sales estimates. Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) is indicated down 1.0% after reporting a net loss of over $1 billion in the first quarter, inflated by costs related to its IPO. It said losses would peak this year.
The Iran news hasn’t been enough to stop U.S. crude oil futures slipping further, after indications from the American Petroleum Institute that crude inventories rose more than expected again last week, albeit not as dramatically as in the week before. WTI was down 0.3% at $61.23 a barrel, while Brent futures were down 0.4% at $69.61 a barrel.
The risk-off mood was helping Gold futures, which were up 0.3% at $1,289.90 a troy ounce, while in the currency market, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, had trimmed overnight losses to be at 97.305, down 0.1%.
