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* Futures down: Dow 0.63%, S&P 0.61%, Nasdaq 0.85%
By Amy Caren Daniel
May 29 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures tumbled on
Wednesday, as growing trade tensions between the United States
and China fanned worries about a global economic slowdown,
keeping investors away from risky assets.
China is ready to use rare earths, a group of 17 chemical
elements used in everything from high-tech consumer electronics
to military equipment, to strike back in a trade war with the
United States, Chinese newspapers warned. Adding to worries, China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
HWT.UL filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit
against the U.S. government, in the telecoms equipment maker's
latest bid to fight sanctions from Washington that threaten to
push it out of global markets. "Until markets see encouraging signs of both sides securing
a trade deal, this negative sentiment and general risk aversion
will most likely continue punishing global equity markets," FXTM
analyst Lukman Otunuga wrote in a note.
Trade worries and slowdown fears have pushed investors to
dump shares globally and head for the safety of German and U.S.
government debt.
This led to yields on the benchmark U.S. 10-year notes
US10YT=RR fall more than 10 basis points below the 3-month
US3MT=RR rates, causing a yield-curve inversion, typically
seen as a leading indicator of a recession. The inversion is the
deepest in almost 12 years. US/
Interest-rate sensitive bank stocks fell in premarket
trading, with JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N , Bank of America Corp
BAC.N and Wells Fargo WFC.N down between 0.5% and 1%.
At 6:37 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMc1 were down 161 points,
or 0.63%. S&P 500 e-minis ESc1 were down 17 points, or 0.61%
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 were down 61.75 points, or 0.85%.
The declines were broad based, with 27 of the 30 Dow
components that were trading premarket posting losses.
Tariff-sensitive stocks such as Apple Inc AAPL.O , Boeing Co
BA.N and Caterpillar Inc CAT.N fell 1%.
Chipmakers, which get a large portion of their revenue from
China, also declined, with shares of Nvidia Corp NVDA.O ,
Micron Technology Inc MU.O and Advanced Micro Devices Inc
AMD.O off about 1.5%.