Dow futures slip on recovery fears as focus turns to Fed

Dow futures fell on Wednesday as renewed fears about the pace of a post-pandemic recovery dented demand for economically sensitive sectors and sent investors to the perceived safety of technology-related stocks including Apple and Amazon.com.

Industrials Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Boeing Co (BA.N) and 3M Co (MMM.N), which generally perform better at a time of strong economic growth, shed between 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent in premarket trading.

Bank stocks JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) fell as much as 0.2 per cent , a day after the S&P 500 (.SPX) logged its worst day in about a month on the back of a bigger-than-expected fall in US retail sales.

After six straight months of gains for the S&P 500, trading on Wall Street's main indexes has been more volatile in August - a seasonally weak period for financial markets - as concerns about slowing US growth and the spread of the Delta variant took the shine off a solid corporate earnings season.

Focus on Wednesday will be on the minutes of the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting, with investors looking for insight into the central bank's debate over when to end its pandemic-era emergency programs. read more

Analysts expect the Fed to announce its plan for a "taper" of its asset purchases as early as its Sept. 21-22 meeting.

At 7:22 am ET, Dow e-minis were down 80 points, or 0.23 per cent , S&P 500 e-minis were down 4 points, or 0.09 per cent , and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 15.25 points, or 0.1 per cent .

Oil stocks Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), Schlumberger NV (SLB.N) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) were up between 0.3 per cent and 1.1 per cent , tracking crude prices higher.

The S&P energy index (.SPNY) has fallen 4.4 per cent in the past four sessions amid fears of slowing global growth.

Amazon (AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O) and other heavyweight tech stocks Google-owner Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) rose between 0.2 per cent and 1.2 per cent .

The stocks had led Wall Street's recovery from its coronavirus lows last year as investors flocked to names seen to benefit from higher demand during widespread lockdowns.

Lowe's Cos Inc (LOW.N) rose 4.3 per cent after it forecast full-year sales above estimates on a rise in spending from builders and handymen getting back to housing projects.