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Futures down: Dow 1.32%, S&P 500 1.55%, Nasdaq 1.86%
Feb 3 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures tumbled on
Monday as fears of a full-blown trade war and its impact on the
global economy jolted markets around the world after President
Donald Trump levied steep tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China.
Over the weekend, Trump imposed hefty new tariffs of 25% on
imports from Mexico and Canada, and 10% on China - which he said
may cause "short-term" pain for Americans.
"Breaking global trade may seem like the thing to do to
resurrect the US industrial economy, a noble ambition, but,
break trade and you disrupt global capital flows necessary to
finance the US budget deficit," an analyst at GlobalData.TS
Lombard wrote in a note.
Trump said he would talk on Monday with the leaders of
Canada and Mexico, which have announced retaliatory tariffs, but
downplayed expectations that they would change his mind.
The iShares MSCI Mexico ETF lost 2.4% in premarket
trading, while an ETF tracking Canada slipped 2.8% in
light volumes.
At 04:11 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 588 points,
or 1.32%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 94.25 points, or
1.55%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 402.25 points,
or 1.86%.
Futures linked to the economically-sensitive Russell 2000
smallcaps index slumped more than 2%.
Most chip stocks slumped, with industry bellwether Nvidia ( NVDA )
sliding 3%, while Broadcom ( AVGO ) lost 3.4%.
Most megacap growth stocks also slid, with Apple ( AAPL )
and Microsoft ( MSFT ) down close to 2% each.
Legacy automakers Ford dropped 4.1%, while General
Motors ( GM ) shed 6.7%.
Trump also warned that tariffs on Europe will "definitely
happen", but did not offer any clarity over his plans. The
pan-European STOXX 600 was last down 1.4%.
Goldman Sachs noted that if said tariffs are sustained, it
could reduce their S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS)
growth forecast by roughly 2%-3%, while Morgan Stanley also
expects US equities to come under pressure.
Treasury yields eased a touch as investors moved into safer
assets such as bonds, while the dollar index was last
flat.
Meanwhile, the quarterly earnings remain in full swing, with
Google-parent Alphabet, chipmaker AMD,
payments platform PayPal ( PYPL ) and drugmaker Eli Lilly ( LLY )
some of the prominent companies reporting earnings this
week.
Of the 178 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported
earnings so far, more than 75% reported earnings that beat
analyst estimates, as per data compiled by LSEG.
Later in the day, a January manufacturing activity reading
is expected. The January non-farm payrolls report is also due
this week on Friday.
Among other movers, cryptocurrency and blockchain-related
stocks dropped as bitcoin prices tumbled in a global
risk-off move.
Exchange operator Coinbase dropped 5.7%, while the
largest corporate holder of bitcoin, MicroStrategy ( MSTR ),
slid 5.2%.
The ProShares Bitcoin ETF lost 5.6%.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by
Shinjini Ganguli)