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Futures down: Dow 0.31%, S&P 500 0.24%, Nasdaq 0.37%

July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on

Friday, as traders shifted out of expensive megacap technology

stocks, while assessing the impact of a worldwide tech outage

that hit businesses across sectors.

Major U.S. airlines ordered ground stops citing

communications issues, while firms including some financial

services and banks reported system outages that disrupted their

operations.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) fell 2.7% in premarket trading after the

cloud disruption.

CrowdStrike Holdings ( CRWD ) slumped 19% after the

Australian government said some outages in the country appeared

to be linked to an issue at the company.

The disruption comes after a grueling two sessions for Wall

Street, as investors assessed second-quarter earnings and a move

away from megacap tech stocks that have primarily driven the

equity rally in 2024.

Other megacaps such as Nvidia ( NVDA ) and Apple ( AAPL )

fell 0.9% and 0.3%, respectively. Chip stocks were mixed in

premarket trading, with the U.S. listing of Taiwan Semiconductor

Manufacturing down 1.8%, while Broadcom ( AVGO ) rose

0.10%.

London Stock Exchange Group's ( LDNXF ) Workspace news and

data platform was also hit by the outage, affecting user access

worldwide and leading to disruptions across financial markets,

while Euronext said some North American stocks-based indices

were being broadcast incorrectly.

"There is chatter that cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike ( CRWD ) ran an

update which didn't work on Microsoft's ( MSFT ) operating system and

that caused systems to fall over. Given we don't know the full

details, it's too early for investors to work out the financial

or reputational impact to these businesses," said Dan

Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell.

Over the past two sessions, the Nasdaq Composite has

fallen 3.5%, the benchmark S&P 500 lost 2.1% and the

Russell 2000 snapped a five-day winning streak on

Wednesday.

Signaling investor unease, the VIX, Wall Street's

"fear gauge", was trading above 16 points - its highest since

late April.

Corporate earnings are also on deck. Reports from American

Express ( AXP ), The Travelers Companies ( TRV ) and Halliburton ( HAL )

are expected before markets open on Friday.

Investors will also await comments from U.S. Federal Reserve

officials John Williams and Raphael Bostic for hints on the

monetary policy path later in the day.

Markets have broadly priced in a 25-basis-point

interest-rate cut by the Fed's September meeting and still

expect two cuts by the year-end according to LSEG data.

At 5:26 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 128 points,

or 0.31%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 13.5 points, or

0.24%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 73.25 points, or

0.37%.

Cybersecurity companies including Palo Alto Networks ( PANW )

, Fortinet ( FTNT ) and Zscaler ( ZS ) rose between 1.4%

and 6.3% after the global disruption.

Among single movers, Netflix ( NFLX ) fell 1.6% after the

streaming giant cautioned that third-quarter subscriber gains

would be lower than a year earlier and forecast Q3 revenue below

estimates.