Stock futures slip as Trump signals delay in trade deal with China

[December 03, 2019]  By Arjun Panchadar

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures slipped on Tuesday after President Donald Trump said a trade deal with China might have to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020, sparking fears of a delay in resolving the tariff dispute.

"I have no deadline, no. In some ways I think it's better to wait until after the election with China," Trump told reporters in London where he was due to attend a meeting of NATO leaders.

Technology stocks including Apple Inc <AAPL.O> as well as chipmakers and industrial stocks, which are trade-sensitive, fell in premarket trading. Most U.S.-listed Chinese stocks were also trading lower.

The prolonged dispute between the world's top two economies has roiled financial markets, disrupted supply chains and dented global growth.

The latest fallout of the trade war on the domestic economy was dismal factory activity data, which led Wall Street's main indexes in the previous session to pull back from their record highs.

At 6:33 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 92 points, or 0.33%. S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were down 8.75 points, or 0.28% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were down 32 points, or 0.38%.

In corporate news, shares of Audentes Therapeutics Inc <BOLD.O> doubled in value after Japan's Astellas Pharma Inc <4503.T> said it would buy the U.S. drugmaker for about $3 billion in cash.

AK Steel Holding Corp <AKS.N> rose 3.8% after miner Cleveland Cliffs Inc <CLF.N> agreed to buy the steel maker for about $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal. Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs fell about 9%.

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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