By Ankika Biswas and Shubham Batra
(Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were poised to slump at the open on Friday after weak employment numbers exacerbated worries of a slowdown in the U.S. economy, with Amazon and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)'s downbeat forecasts also flattening megacap tech and chip stocks.
A Labor Department report showed nonfarm payrolls rose by 114,000 jobs in July, sharply lower than the 175,000 additions estimated by economists polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate ticked higher, to 4.3%, from 4.1% a month ago.
With fresh evidence of a weakening labor market, traders are now betting the U.S. Federal Reserve will deliver a big half-percentage-point rate cut in September versus the 25-bps cut expected before the data.
At 8:46 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 474 points, or 1.17%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 92.75 points, or 1.69%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 474.5 points, or 2.49%.
"Now the question isn't will they cut in September, but by how much? With the Sahm rule (a recession gauge) officially being triggered, both the talk of recession and criticism of the Fed will grow louder," said Jay Woods, chief global strategist, Freedom Capital Markets.
On the earnings front, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) slumped 9.9% in premarket trading after the company reported slowing online sales growth in the second quarter and said cautious consumers were seeking out cheaper purchase options.
Intel tumbled 24.5% after forecasting third-quarter revenue below estimates and suspending its dividend, starting in the fourth quarter.
Other chip stocks were also hit and were set to extend Thursday's losses. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) fell 5%, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) was lower by 3%, Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) lost 3.8%, Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) shed 4.4% and Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) was down 5%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) inched 1.3% lower in a broader weakness in megacaps, even as it posted better-than-expected third-quarter iPhone sales and forecast more gains, betting on AI to attract buyers.
Other megacaps such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shed around 2% each. Meta (NASDAQ:META) also dropped, losing 2% after soaring on Thursday following upbeat results.
Concerns about the dominance of the "Magnificent Seven" group of stocks persist as earnings from most of these Big Tech companies have failed to enthuse investors, underscoring fears of their valuations being inflated.
Wall Street's "fear gauge" breached the long-term average level of 20 points and touching its highest level since last October.
Nasdaq 100 futures were trading 10% below their record closing high, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended nearly 8% below its own all-time closing level in July.
Futures tracking the domestically focused small-cap Russell 2000 index dropped 3.6%.
All the three major indexes kicked off August with steep declines on Thursday after a round of economic data spurred worries of a faster-than-expected economic slowdown, with the U.S. Federal Reserve maintaining a restrictive monetary policy.
The benchmark S&P 500, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the blue-chip Dow are on track to log losses for a week in which the Fed opened the door to a September interest-rate cut.
Among other movers, Snap lost 19.6% after forecasting current-quarter results below expectations.
Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) slipped 1.8% after the oil giant missed estimates for second-quarter profit, hurt by weak refining margins.