Yahoo Finance Stocks - U.S. Futures Drop as Turkish Lira Tumbles on Threat of Sanctions
Investing.com - U.S. futures pointed to a lower open on Friday as investors were spooked by a renewed decline in the Turkish lira spurred by the U.S. threat of more sanctions.
The blue-chip Dow futures fell 13 points, or 0.05%, by 7:13 AM ET (11:13 GMT), the S&P 500 futures lost 2 points, or 0.08%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded down 10 points, or 0.14%.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s announced that the U.S. is prepared to slap Turkey with more sanctions if its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refuses the quick release of an American pastor.
Trump later tweeted that the U.S. “will pay nothing” for the release of the pastor Andrew Brunson, who is on house arrest in Turkey over terrorism charges.
The Turkish lira took a dive against the dollar, having now lost nearly two-thirds of its value since the beginning of the year. At 7:15 AM ET (11:15 GMT), USD/TRY was up 4.59%at 6.1020, paring gains from an intraday high of 6.3507.
Also pressuring U.S. equities, the outlook from chipmakers dampened bullish sentiment.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) tumbled 4.06% ahead of the open after the company issued a softer-than-expected guidance when it released quarterly results after Thursday’s close.
Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) was also expected to add to the carnage with shares sinking 5.69% after the chipmaker forecast weaker-than-expected earnings per share for its fiscal fourth quarter.
Outside of the tech sector, Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) saw shares decline 3.90% after the company cut its fiscal full-year forecast for adjusted net income.
In positive earnings, Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) surged 9.32% as it reported a same-store sales increase that smashed expectations and increased its profit guidance for the year.
On Friday’s economic agenda, the University of Michigan will release its preliminary measure of August consumer sentiment at 10:00 AM ET (14:00 GMT). Economists expect that the index rose to 98.1 from 97.9 in July.
While waiting for the data, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.11% at 96.37 by 7:23 AM ET (11:23 GMT).
Meanwhile, oil prices headed higher on Friday, erasing some of the sharp losses felt this week as hopes that the U.S. and China would tone down its trade battle given its agreement to restart talks at the end of August.
International benchmark Brent futures gained 67 cents, or 0.94%, at $72.10 by 7:25 AM ET (11:25 GMT) a barrel, while U.S. crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded up 37 cents, or 0.57%, at $65.83.
However, both barrels were on track for a weekly decline of 2.6% and 0.8%, respectively.
Later on Friday, Baker Hughes will release its most recent data on U.S. crude production. The U.S. rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose by 10 to 869 last week, the highest level since March 2015, according to the oilfield services firm.
Elsewhere, European shares were under pressure on concerns over banks’ financial exposure to Turkey.
Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei ended with gains of 0.4%, boosted by a strong close on Wall Street, but China’s Shanghai Composite finished down 1.3% as trade concerns supported risk off sentiment.
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