By Devik Jain
(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Dow looked set to ease from record levels on Wednesday as a drop in commodity prices and fresh regulatory crackdown in China dented optimism around strong quarterly earnings.
Shares of energy firms including Chevron tracked lower oil prices, while major lenders such as Bank of America slipped on a flattening U.S. yield curve.
A new round regulatory crackdown in China as well as uncertainty around the U.S. monetary policy appeared to cloud investors’ sentiment in early New York hours despite bumper results from technology majors.
Microsoft Corp rose 2.1% in premarket trading after it forecast a strong end to the calendar year, thanks to its booming cloud business.
Twitter Inc gained 1.4% after the social networking site’s quarterly revenue grew 37% and avoided the brunt of Apple Inc’s privacy changes on advertising that hobbled its rivals.
Google owner Alphabet Inc also reported record quarterly profit for the third straight quarter on a surge in ad sales. However, its shares were down 0.6% after rising nearly 59% so far this year.
Stronger-than-expected earnings reports have helped drive the S&P 500 and Dow back to all-time highs this week, while bringing the tech-heavy Nasdaq just below 1% from its record peak.
Profit for S&P 500 companies is expected to grow 35.6% year-on-year in the third quarter, with market participants gauging how companies are navigating supply-chain bottlenecks, labor shortages and inflationary pressures induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
IT outsourcing services provider Cognizant and e-commerce firm eBay Inc are set to report results later in the day.
Robinhood Markets Inc slipped 8.4% after the retail broker reported downbeat third-quarter revenue as trading levels declined for cryptocurrencies including dogecoin.
At 6:53 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 15 points, or 0.04%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.25 points, or 0.09%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 20.5 points, or 0.13%.
Texas Instruments Inc forecast tepid quarterly revenue and missed market expectations for the third quarter, as the chipmaker struggles with supply chain constraints in the semiconductor industry, sending its shares down 4.2%.
(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
