NEW YORK, Jan 23 — US stock index futures edged lower today on rising worries over the coronavirus outbreak in China that prompted a lockdown of two cities in the country, with a mixed bag of results adding to the dour sentiment.
The benchmark S&P 500 closed with tiny gains yesterday and well below its record high after attempting to bounce back from sharp losses earlier in the week on concerns about the virus outbreak hitting the global economy.
China put on lockdown today two cities at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak amid fears the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year holidays.
Casino and hotel operators including Wynn Resorts Ltd , Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp, which draw a large portion of their revenue from China, were down between and 2.8 per cent and 4 per cent in premarket trading.
Airlines stocks were mixed, with Southwest Airlines Co slipping 0.9 per cent after reporting a 21 per cent fall in fourth-quarter profit due to Boeing 737 MAX costs, while JetBlue Airways Corp rose 2.6 per cent after reporting a slight rise in quarterly profit.
Consumer products company Procter & Gamble and insurer Travellers Cos Inc, both members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell about 2 per cent after reporting results.
At 7.32am ET, Dow e-minis were down 53 points, or 0.18 per cent. S&P 500 e-minis were down 3.25 points, or 0.1 per cent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 0.5 point, or 0.01 per cent.
Of the 58 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, 67.2 per cent have topped Wall Street’s profit estimates, according to Refinitiv IBES data. On an average, 65 per cent of the companies beat profit estimates.
Texas Instruments Inc fell 0.7 per cent despite forecasting first-quarter revenue above market expectations, but bullish brokerage actions on Micron Technology Inc and Western Digital Corp were set to boost the sector. — Reuters
