(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock index futures dropped after reports that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un underwent a medical procedure.
Contracts on the S&P 500 slid as much as 1.2%, before paring their loss to 0.6% as of 12:22 p.m. in Tokyo. Futures dropped 0.5% on the Nasdaq 100 Index and 0.7% on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The U.S. has information that Kim was in a critical situation after cardiovascular surgery last week, an official said. South Korean media reports suggested that Kim was recovering.
North Korean “succession risk is causing global equity markets to buckle,” Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp, wrote in a research note. “But as we’ve seen countless times before a rise in geopolitical risk in the Korean Gulf is usually a faders paradise.”
The underlying S&P 500 halted a two-day gain on Monday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2%. Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) and Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM). led losses in the blue-chip index as West Texas oil futures expiring Tuesday turned negative for the first time, primarily because the end of the May contract forces physical receipt at a time when storage capacity is low. June prices fell below $22 a barrel.
After the close of U.S. trading, International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) Corp. reported a drop in first-quarter revenue and pulled its profit forecast for the year. Separately, President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration into the United States as the country tries to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
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