US pre-open: Futures point to heavy losses as trade tensions remain in focus
Futures on Wall Street were pointing to some heavy losses at the opening bell on Thursday, with fears that trade tensions between Washington and Beijing would get worse rather than better doing the rounds.
As of 1205 BST, Dow Jones futures were 0.90% lower at 25,539, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were pointing to losses of 0.98% and 1.34%, respectively.
The Dow looked set to open 232 points lower following another bruising session for US tech stocks during the previous session, with Asian-listed equities caught in their downdraft on Thursday.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "The prospect of a speedy conclusion to the current tensions between the US and China continues to recede, and as such the caution of the last few days, runs the risk of turning into a full-blown retreat from those sectors that are likely to be hit the hardest, from further escalations."
A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce remarked overnight that trade talks between the two could only continue if the US was to adjust its "wrong actions".
He added that the US crackdown on Chinese firms was threatening the "global industrial and supply chain".
According to the South China Morning Post, the Asian superpower has been forced to rethink its economic relationship with the US following Washington's recent ban on American firm's trading with Chinese entities.
Chinese telco giant Huawei has already begun looking into developing its own operating system if it can not access Alphabet's Android or Microsoft's OS following Trump's 90-day reprieve on the ban.
The ongoing trade tensions also offset the boost for stocks from the latest set of minutes from the FOMC's meeting on 30 April and 1 May, published on Wednesday evening, which revealed that policymakers expected interest rates to remain steady "for some time".
Hewson said: "The minutes do show that the Fed is in no particular hurry to move on rates in the near future, however, these minutes pre-date the break down in trade talks between the US and China, so the macro environment has altered significantly.
"This would suggest that this week's comments by St Louis Fed President James Bullard are likely to be more pertinent in relation to the thinking of the FOMC. As a reminder, he said that the FOMC may have overdone it when they hiked rates in December."
On the data front, weekly jobless claims were due at 1330 BST, while Markit's manufacturing and services purchasing managers indices for May set to follow at 1445 BST and new home sales for April due out at 1500 BST.
In corporate news, retailers Best Buy and GAP will report earnings ahead of the open, while tech giant HP was set to publish its second-quarter figures after the close.