By Pranav Kashyap and Twesha Dikshit
Jan 30 (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures cut some losses on Friday, after President Donald Trump nominated former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to head the U.S. central bank.
Futures slid overnight, while the dollar and Treasury yields climbed on Thursday following media reports that the White House was preparing for Trump to nominate Warsh as the next Fed chair.
Reaction in financial markets was largely subdued after Trump’s announcement on Friday. Warsh is seen as a comparatively moderate figure who is notably more cautious of deploying heavy monetary stimulus despite his preference for lower rates.
“In terms of the dollar impact, it’s neutral and for equity markets, it’s also neutral,” said Elias Haddad, global head of markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman.
“He still favors lower rates, so that’s supportive for risk assets. But on the other hand, he wants to significantly reduce the Fed’s balance sheet, which has been a big support for this melt-up in asset prices,” Haddad said.
The nomination caps a months-long process that often resembled a public audition as Warsh, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett and other top contenders, including sitting Fed governor Christopher Waller and Wall Street insider Rick Rieder, appeared regularly on television to showcase their thoughts about the economy and Fed policy.
At 06:58 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 130 points, or 0.26%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 22.5 points, or 0.32%and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 118.5 points, or 0.46%.
Futures tracking the small-cap Russell 2000 index, which is more sensitive to interest rates, fell 0.7%.
The CBOE volatility index – Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” was near session lows at 17.80 points.
Indexes were whipsawed on Thursday with the Nasdaq falling over 2%, before finishing 0.7% lower. The S&P also closed down 0.1% after falling over 1%.
Microsoft logged its worst day since March 2020 after its cloud revenue failed to impress, triggering a broad tech sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday.
Its shares rose 0.6% in premarket trading.
Meanwhile, Apple forecast higher-than-expected revenue growth of up to 16% for the March quarter, but warned that rising memory chip prices had started to pressure profitability.
The iPhone maker’s shares were marginally lower in premarket trading.
(Reporting by Pranav Kashyap and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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