Stock futures fall on trade war, global growth worries

[August 12, 2019]  By Medha Singh

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday, as investors shunned risky bets on fears that a drawn-out trade war between the United States and China would significantly hamper global growth.

The three main indexes ended marginally lower last week, wrapping up five days of high volume trading marked by wild swings, as investors feared that a slide in China's yuan would expand the scope of the trade war to include currencies.

President Donald Trump said on Friday he was not ready to make a deal with China, pouring cold water on any hopes that the dispute would end soon.

Highlighting the fallout of the trade dispute on global growth, a survey by Germany's Ifo economic institute on Monday showed the economic outlook for third quarter has deteriorated worldwide.

Trade-related worries have been a major drag on the benchmark S&P 500 <.SPX>, which has slipped 3.7% from its all-time high hit in July.

At 6:48 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 194 points, or 0.74%. S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were down 21.75 points, or 0.74% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were down 61 points, or 0.8%.

Investors seeking safety in perceived safe havens pushed the Japanese yen and U.S. government bond prices higher.

A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The so-called FAANG group, Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>, Apple <AAPL.O>, Netflix Inc <NFLX.O> and Google-parent Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>, which led the market rally this year, slipped between 0.4% and 1.3% in premarket trading.

Chipmakers, which depend on China for a large portion of their revenue, were also under pressure. Micron Technology Inc <MU.O>, Nvidia Corp <NVDA.O> and Advanced Micro Devices Inc <AMD.O> fell between 0.6% and 1.5%.

Bank of America Corp <BAC.N>, Goldman Sachs <GS.N> and Morgan Stanley <MS.N> fell more than 1.2% each, as lower bond yields hit shares of interest-rate sensitive lenders.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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