Stocks futures fall as Trump, Hong Kong weaken mood

By Arjun Panchadar

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday as President Donald Trump’s comments dampened expectations around a U.S.-China trade deal, while escalating violence in Hong Kong added to investor worries.

Hopes of a “phase one” deal to end the damaging 16-month trade war and largely upbeat corporate earnings have sparked a rally that helped the three major stock indexes close at record highs on Friday.

But Trump said on Saturday that the United States would only make a deal if it was the “right deal” for America, adding that the talks had moved more slowly than he would have liked.

Trade-sensitive stocks Caterpillar Inc (N:) Advanced Micro Devices Inc (O:), Micron Technology (O:) and Intel Corp (O:) shed between 0.8% and 1.3% in premarket trading.

With the third-quarter earnings season drawing to a close, attention will now be on economic data, as well as comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later this week.

At 7:34 a.m. ET, <1YMcv1> were down 113 points, or 0.41%. were down 11.5 points, or 0.37% and were down 35.5 points, or 0.43%.

Continuing violence in Hong Kong also hit sentiment after police shot and wounded a protester in the 24th straight week of pro-democracy protests in the Chinese-ruled territory.

Qualcomm Inc (O:) fell 1.8% after Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) downgraded the chipmaker to “equal-weight” from “overweight”.

Cisco Systems Inc (O:) dropped 1.3% as Piper Jaffray cut its rating on the networking equipment maker to “neutral” from “overweight”.

SunPower Corp (O:) gained 3.8% after the solar cell and panel maker said it would split into two separate publicly-traded companies.

Lipocine Inc (O:) slumped 67% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its oral drug to treat a condition that results in lower production of sex hormone.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.