Futures Slide As Chipmakers Tumble; Attention Turns To Powell’s Sintra Speech, Stress Test Results

US equity futures are weaker, led by tumbling chipmakers after the WSJ reported that the US may move to further restrict exports of even less powerful AI-related chips, which could stoke further tensions between the two countries. At 7:45am ET, S&P futures were down 0.2% while Nasdaq 100 Index futures dropped 0.5% as Nvidia – which generates 20% of its sales from China – and AMD sank more than 3%. The dollar continued to gain against its Group-of-10 peers, while Treasuries remained little changed, after economic data released Tuesday showed surprising strength in several corners of the US economy. The USD is higher as bonds have caught a bid pushing the 10Y yield below 3.73%; commodities are once again mostly lower with some strength in the Energy complex’ bitcoin slides. Focus turns to whether Fed chair Jerome Powell maintains his hawkish stance when speaking on a panel with other major central bankers at the ECB’s forum in Sintra at 930am today.

In premarket trading, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices were the most notable movers, dropping after the Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that lawmakers have discussed stopping some sales of artificial intelligence chips to China, which could stoke further tensions between the two countries. Here are some other notable premarket movers.