Investing.com - U.S. futures fell on Friday after weak Chinese industrial data and lowered forecasts from Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) sent fresh tremors through stock markets that are increasingly afraid of a global downturn.
China’s industrial output growth slowed to its slowest rate in over 17 years in May, as the world's second-largest economy showed signs of weakening under U.S. trade pressure.
Meanwhile, Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) slumped 8.7% in premarket trading after forecasting a slowdown in demand for chips, citing the trade war between the U.S. and China. Most chipmakers have been predicting a stronger second half to the year after a weak first half, and Broadcom's warning damages one of the biggest props to sentiment for the sector.
Tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 66 points or 0.9% by 6:40 AM ET (10:40 GMT), while Dow futures fell 63 points or 0.2% and S&P 500 futures was down 10 points or 0.4%.
Chipmakers stocks were among the hardest hit in the tech sector, with AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) falling 3.4%, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) falling 2.9% and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) losing 2.2%.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) also fell 1.6% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) dipping 0.4% after its Instagram app suffered another major outage on Thursday.
Elsewhere energy stocks were up, with Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) rising 0.2% as traders monitored developments in the Middle East, after two oil tankers were apparently attacked on Thursday near the Straits of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil supply passes.
The White House blamed Iran for the attacks, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Tehran “wants our successful maximum pressure campaign lifted.” Iran has denied involvement.
In commodities, crude oil fell 0.4% to $52.03 a barrel after reaching an intraday high of $53.37 on Thursday. Gold futures stormed over 1% higher to $1,358.85 a troy ounce, their highest in over a month, as fears of war in the Middle East spurred demand for haven assets, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched up 0.01% to 97.072.
On the economic front, retail sales come out at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT), while preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment data is released at 10:00 AM ET (14:00 GMT).