(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Friday as big technology and semiconductor stocks fell, as investors awaited manufacturing and service sector survey results for further clues about the health of the world’s largest economy.
The S&P 500 surpassed the 5,500-point milestone in trading on Thursday, but the benchmark index and the Nasdaq both ended lower as large-cap stocks fell.
Nvidia fell 1.5% in premarket trading on Friday, after a drop in the previous trading day that put the company’s market cap behind Microsoft’s again.
Shares in other chip makers Broadcom Inc., Supermicro Computer Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. fell between 0.8 percent and 1.2 percent, while Microsoft shares fell 0.2 percent and Apple Inc. fell 0.3 percent.
Later in the day, manufacturing and services figures are expected to fall slightly but remain above the 50 mark, indicating activity is still expanding.
Wall Street has been rallying in recent months, driven mainly by a surge in shares of Nvidia and several other artificial intelligence-related stocks.
Investors are also evaluating comments from the Federal Reserve that interest rates could remain higher for longer if a weakening set of economic data and inflation measures don’t show consistent improvement.
Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Thursday that it could take a year or two for inflation to return to 2 percent because wage growth may still be too high.
Still, all three major Wall Street indexes rose over the weekend, with the small-cap-heavy Russell 2000 index expected to rise as well.
According to LSEG FedWatch data, short-term money markets are pricing in a 64% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut at the Fed’s September meeting, and are expecting around two rate cuts this year.
Friday’s trading also marks the expiration of quarterly derivatives contracts linked to stocks, index options and futures, a move also known as the “triple witching.”
As of 5:49 a.m. ET, the Dow e-minis were down 26 points (0.07%), the S&P 500 e-minis were down 8.25 points (0.15%) and the Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 24.75 points (0.12%).
Shares of pharmaceutical company Gilead rose 6.4%, extending gains from the previous day, after a late-stage study showed that the company’s long-acting injectable drug was more effective at preventing HIV infection in women than the existing daily pill Truvada.
Sarepta Therapeutics shares soared 34% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved expanding coverage of the company’s gene therapy to patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy age 4 and older.
(Reporting by Lisa Matakal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shaunak Dasgupta)
