Investing.com-- U.S. stock index futures steadied Wednesday after losses in technology stocks, triggered by weak earnings from chipmaking bellwether ASML (AS:ASML), dragged Wall Street off record highs.
At 05:50 ET (09:50 GMT), Dow Jones Futures fell 13 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 Futures gained 2 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 20 points, or 0.1%.
Losses in chipmakers battered Wall Street on Tuesday, with the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite falling nearly 1%, while both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%, each retreating from record highs.
This weakness followed semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) cutting its annual forecast on weak demand for chips not related to artificial intelligence.
The stock slid over 16% on Tuesday, and has continued to weaken during premarket trading Wednesday.
Chipmakers were also rattled by a report suggesting the U.S. government was considering limiting sales of AI-related chips to certain countries - a scenario that heralds weaker sales.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) slid 4.5%, while rivals AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) lost 5.2% and 3.3%, respectively.
Q3 earnings to continue this week
There are more earnings to digest Wednesday, with numbers from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) rounding out bank earnings after largely positive earnings from the likes of Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) and U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) are also set to report on Wednesday, while Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) will report on Thursday.
The earnings season is set to peak next week with prints from a string of major technology firms, including Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Beyond earnings, investor focus is also on addresses from a string of Federal Reserve officials, amid growing bets that interest rates will fall at a slower-than-expected pace.
Crude steadies after losses
Oil prices steadied Wednesday after recent sharp losses, as traders assessed signs of possibly cooling tensions in the Middle East and concerns over a slowdown in demand growth from top exporter China.
By 05:50 ET, the Brent contract climbed 0.1% to $74.31 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures (WTI) traded 0.1% higher at $70.67 per barrel.
Both benchmarks plummeted more than 4% in the prior session to a near two-week low after a media report said Israel will not attack Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities, quelling fears of a major escalation in the Middle East.
Weak economic readings from China also weighed, while both the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the International Energy Agency cut their demand growth outlooks for 2024 this week.
(Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)