Before the Bell
The sell-off in semiconductor and AI stocks that followed Wednesday's hot inflation report has spread overnight. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 1.0% and S&P 500 futures are off 0.2%, while Dow and Russell 2000 futures are up about 0.3%, a sign that money is rotating away from technology rather than leaving stocks altogether. Gold is up 1.6%, the dollar is down 0.5% and the 10-year Treasury yield has eased to about 5.08%. At 8:30 a.m. Eastern, the market gets September producer prices, retail sales and weekly jobless claims, all of which feed into how hard the Federal Reserve leans toward another rate hike.
On Wednesday, a faster-than-expected rise in the Consumer Price Index sent the S&P 500 down 1.11% to 7,718.94, its steepest drop since late July. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.88% to 26,692.87 and the Dow slipped 0.09% to 51,621.48. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 4.3%. Dell dropped about 11% after Barclays downgraded it, while UnitedHealth rose about 4.7% on a third-quarter beat and a higher profit outlook. Overnight, South Korea's Kospi fell about 7% and Japan's Nikkei 4.9%, led by memory-chip makers such as SK Hynix. Europe is mixed: Germany's DAX is lower on tech weakness, and the UK's FTSE 100 is higher after August GDP unexpectedly grew.