Stock futures were relatively unchanged on Sunday after the three major averages posted weekly losses.
S&P 500 futures traded down 0.1%, while Nasdaq-100 futures rose 0.1%. Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were lower by 63 points, or 0.1%.
The three leading U.S. indexes closed in the red last week, as pressure on chip stocks weighed on sentiment. The S&P 500 dropped 1.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite sank 2.9%, and the 30-stock Dow lost 0.9%. Additionally, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) saw its third weekly decline in four weeks, losing nearly 9%.
Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, believes there may be even more declines in store for semiconductors from here.
“They could certainly bounce here in the short term, but we don’t see signs of kind of that real big washout that you’re looking for,” he told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” Friday. “It’s probably too soon if you just think about two weeks ago, really, we had record volumes on the upside for names like Micron and the like, so I think it’s probably premature to look for a bottom there.”
Traders continued to monitor the conflict in the Middle East, with tensions between the U.S. and Iran ramping up over the weekend.
U.S. military forces on Sunday attacked Iran for the eighth night in a row while Iran stepped up airstrikes on American bases in the region. The escalation in hostilities placed increasing strain on the fragile truce between the two countries.
The U.S. Central Command said a third service member had been killed during the recent fighting. American forces also “found unidentified remains” near the site of an Iranian attack in Jordan on July 17 that saw two killed, Centcom said. The U.S. is working to identify the remains.
Oil futures opened higher following the developments. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were last up 2% to trade above $84 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude futures gained 2% to above $90 a barrel.
Traders are also awaiting the latest batch of earnings set to drop this week. “Magnificent Seven” members Alphabet and Tesla are among those to report, doing so after the bell on Wednesday. Intel — which recorded a 13% drop last week amid the drawdown in chip prices — is slated to release on Thursday.
