Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a lower open on Friday as tension between the U.S. and North Korea continued to dampen risk appetite and cause flight to safe havens, while investors awaited inflation data to gauge its impact on Federal Reserve (Fed) policies.
The blue-chip Dow futures fell 25 points, or 0.11%, at 7:00AM ET (11:00GMT), the S&P 500 futures lost 5 points, or 0.18%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded down 17 points, or 0.30%.
In recent geopolitical developments, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a fresh round of warnings to North Korea, suggesting that his previous threat to unleash “fire and fury” may not have been “tough enough”.
North Korea “better get their act together or they’re going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world,” he warned.
The face-off has sent global stocks tumbling this week, set for their worst weekly decline this year, as risk-off sentiment sent investors to safe haven assets.
Volatility spiked more than 40% on Thursday and continued to climb to levels not seen since the results of the U.S. presidential elections last November.
At 7:01AM ET (11:01GMT), the CBOE volatility index, known as the fear gauge, was last up around 5% at 16.81, pulling back from an intraday high of 17.28.
In the flight to safety, gold continued to hold near a nine-week high on Friday as investors piled into the precious metal. Comex gold futures gained $2.81, or around 0.2%, to $1,292.91 a troy ounce by 7:02AM ET (11:02GMT).
Additionally, yields on core government debt fell as market participants looking for safety drove fixed income prices higher. Ten-year U.S. yields dropped about 2 basis points (bps) to 2.191% by 7:03AM ET (11:03GMT) while German equivalents fell 3 bps to 0.380%.
Safe haven currencies such as the yen and Swiss franc also saw buying interest, strengthening against the U.S. dollar.
Apart from the heightened political tension, markets will focus their attention Friday on July inflation data.
The Commerce Department will publish its consumer price index (CPI) at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT) Friday. Market analysts expect consumer prices to edge forward 0.2%, while core inflation is forecast to rise 0.2%.
On a yearly base, core CPI is projected to climb 1.7%. Core prices are viewed by the Federal Reserve as a better gauge of longer-term inflationary pressure because they exclude the volatile food and energy categories. The central bank usually tries to aim for 2% core inflation or less.
Rising inflation would be a catalyst to push the Fed toward raising interest rates in the months ahead and a higher-than-expected reading on Friday would help convince markets to up the odds for a rate hike in December.
Fed fund futures currently price in the chance of an end-of-the-year increase at around only 40%.
On the company front, Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) saw shares tank 14% in pre-market trade on Friday after the self-proclaimed camera company reported results that missed estimates on both the top and bottom line after the previous session’s close.
No S&P 500 firms were scheduled to report on Friday, though attention may focus on JC Penney (NYSE:JCP) as the last department store reports before the bell in what has been a busy week for earnings from brick and mortar retailers.
455 S&P companies have already released earnings for the second quarter reporting period with just 20 on tap for next week, including the likes of Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), Home Depot (NYSE:HD), Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO), or Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT).
Meanwhile, oil prices moved lower Friday, on track for weekly losses of nearly 3%, on the back of persistent worries over the global supply glut as investors waited for weekly data on U.S. drilling activity.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday that strong demand should help the market rebalance, but noted that OPEC's compliance with the agreed production cuts in July had fallen to 75%, the lowest since the cuts began in January.
The overall global oil supply rose by 520,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July to stand 500,000 bpd above year-ago levels, the IEA said in its monthly report.
Market participants will keep an eye on increasing U.S. shale production when Baker Hughes releases its most recent weekly rig count data later on Friday.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.45% to $48.37 by 7:07AM ET (11:07GMT), while Brent oil 0.31 % to $51.74.