US pre-open: Futures sharply lower amid recessions fears

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the bell on Monday amid ongoing tariff negotiations and fears of a potential recession. As of 1215 GMT, Dow Jones futures were down 1.05%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 1.22% and 1.40% lower, respectively.

The Dow closed 222.64 points higher on Friday but still shed 2.4% for the week as a whole.

Futures headded south after Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US economy was going through "a period of transition" when he was posed a question regarding the possibility of a recession.

Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "First up, uncertainty surrounding Trump's tariffs. The president appears to be taking a scatter-gun approach in terms of targets, while teasing the markets with last minute reprieves, delays or softening in scope. All-in-all, it's proving difficult to price all this in. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell alluded to this in a speech on Friday. But he repeated his view that the Fed should remain patient and be in no rush to cut rates further until they had more clarity over inflation and other economic indicators.

"Aside from this, there are some concerns over the US economy. Recent data, particularly those numbers which attempt to measure confidence, have deteriorated. There's also been some mixed jobs data, although Friday's non-farm payrolls were relatively benign. Nevertheless, inflation remains well above target, yet bond yields have fallen and forecasts for US growth have been downgraded sharply for the rest of the year."

No major corporate earnings or data points were scheduled for release on Monday.







Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com