Stocks futures fall as Trump, Hong Kong weaken mood

[November 11, 2019]  By Arjun Panchadar

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday as President Donald Trump's comments dampened expectations around a U.S.-China trade deal, while escalating violence in Hong Kong added to investor worries.

 Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Hopes of a "phase one" deal to end the damaging 16-month trade war and largely upbeat corporate earnings have sparked a rally that helped the three major stock indexes close at record highs on Friday.

But Trump said on Saturday that the United States would only make a deal if it was the "right deal" for America, adding that the talks had moved more slowly than he would have liked.

Trade-sensitive stocks Caterpillar Inc <CAT.N> Advanced Micro Devices Inc <AMD.O>, Micron Technology <MU.O> and Intel Corp <INTC.O> shed between 0.8% and 1.3% in premarket trading.

With the third-quarter earnings season drawing to a close, attention will now be on economic data, as well as comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later this week.

At 7:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 113 points, or 0.41%. S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were down 11.5 points, or 0.37% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were down 35.5 points, or 0.43%.

Continuing violence in Hong Kong also hit sentiment after police shot and wounded a protester in the 24th straight week of pro-democracy protests in the Chinese-ruled territory.

Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O> fell 1.8% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the chipmaker to "equal-weight" from "overweight".

Cisco Systems Inc <CSCO.O> dropped 1.3% as Piper Jaffray cut its rating on the networking equipment maker to "neutral" from "overweight".

SunPower Corp <SPWR.O> gained 3.8% after the solar cell and panel maker said it would split into two separate publicly-traded companies.

Lipocine Inc <LPCN.O> slumped 67% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its oral drug to treat a condition that results in lower production of sex hormone.

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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