U.S. stock futures fell Friday evening as investors digested fresh tariff measures announced by President Donald Trump as well as earnings from tech heavyweights Amazon and Apple, ahead of the release of the widely-watched monthly jobs report, News.az reports citing Xinhua.
At 05:55 ET (09:55 GMT), Dow Jones Futures traded 375 points, or 0.9%, lower, S&P 500 Futures slipped 55 points, or 0.9%, and Nasdaq 100 Futures fell 218 points, or 0.9%.
The main averages on Wall Street fell in the prior session, retreating from earlier gains, as worries over the implications of Friday’s trade deadline outweighed blockbuster quarterly returns from tech giants Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
More Trump tariffs
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday lifting tariffs to as much as 50% on dozens of countries, as after weeks of negotiation and delays, the deadline for his "reciprocal" tariffs arrived.
Major industrialized economies such as the European Union, Japan and South Korea will face duties of 15%, while other countries who run a trade surplus with the U.S. will be hit with tariffs of 10%.
Even higher tariffs are set to be slapped on other nations, including 50% levies on Brazil. Trump increased tariffs on Canada to 35% for goods that do not comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was signed during Trump’s first term.
The levies are now set to activate at 12:01 am on August 7.
Meanwhile, Trump and Mexican counterpart Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico was granted another 90-day reprieve to forge an agreement.
Amazon slips on weak AWS performance
In the corporate sector, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares slumped premarket after the e-commerce giant provided weak operating income guidance for the current quarter.
Amazon Web Services, its crucial cloud computing division, delivered sales of $30.9 billion, up 17.5% from a year earlier. While slightly above consensus expectations for 17% growth, this still disappointed given the high expectations and amid concerns that AWS may have lost more market share than expected.
By contrast, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares jumped higher after the iPhone maker reported third-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates, driven by better-than-expected iPhone sales as China demand rebounded and services revenue hit an all-time high.
More quarterly results are due Friday from the likes of oil giants Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), manufacturer Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (F:REGN) and consumer goods company Kimberly-Clark (NASDAQ:KMB).
Payrolls data due
On the economic data slate, investors will have the chance to parse through the latest gauge of the American labor market on Friday, when the Labor Department unveils its all-important monthly jobs report for July.
The U.S. is tipped to have added 106,000 roles last month, down from 147,000 in June, while the unemployment rate is seen ticking up slightly to 4.2% from 4.1%.
On Wednesday, the central bank chose to leave borrowing costs unchanged for a fifth straight meeting, even as it faced intense pressure from Trump to quickly cut rates to help boost the economy. While the decision was widely anticipated, what the Fed chooses to do at its next gathering in September is unclear.
Oil prices slipped slightly Friday as traders digested the likely impact of new higher tariffs on economic growth at the end of a positive week.
At 05:55 ET, Brent futures slipped 0.3% to $71.47 a barrel, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 0.4% to $69.01 a barrel.
Both benchmarks retreated around 1% higher on Thursday following the imposition of new, and mostly higher, tariff rates on a number of U.S. trading partners, including Canada, India and Taiwan, that failed to reach trade deals by Trump’s deadline of August 1.
However, both contracts are set to register gains of around 5% this week after Trump earlier this week threatened to place tariffs on buyers of Russian crude, particularly China and India, to coax Russia into halting its war against Ukraine.
