Gold bars to be exempt from tariffs, White House clarifies
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* Futures: Dow off 0.18%, S&P down 0.10%, Nasdaq up 0.01%
By Sruthi Shankar
Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged lower on
Thursday on rising worries over the coronavirus outbreak in
China that prompted a lockdown of two cities in the country,
with a mixed bag of results adding to the dour sentiment.
The benchmark S&P 500 closed with tiny gains on Wednesday
and well below its record high after attempting to bounce back
from sharp losses earlier in the week on concerns about the
virus outbreak hitting the global economy.
China put on lockdown on Thursday two cities at the
epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak amid fears the
transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of
Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year holidays.
Casino and hotel operators including Wynn Resorts Ltd
WYNN.O , Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd MLCO.O and Las
Vegas Sands Corp LVS.N , which draw a large portion of their
revenue from China, were down between and 2.8% and 4% in
premarket trading.
Airlines stocks were mixed, with Southwest Airlines Co
LUV.N slipping 0.9% after reporting a 21% fall in
fourth-quarter profit due to Boeing 737 MAX costs, while JetBlue
Airways Corp JBLU.O rose 2.6% after reporting a slight rise in
quarterly profit. Consumer products company Procter & Gamble PG.N and
insurer Travelers Cos Inc TRV.N , both members of the Dow Jones
Industrial Average .DJI , fell about 2% after reporting
results. At 7:32 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 53 points,
or 0.18%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 3.25 points, or 0.1%
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 0.5 point, or 0.01%.
Of the 58 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, 67.2%
have topped Wall Street's profit estimates, according to
Refinitiv IBES data. On an average, 65% of the companies beat
profit estimates.
Texas Instruments Inc TXN.O fell 0.7% despite forecasting
first-quarter revenue above market expectations, but bullish
brokerage actions on Micron Technology Inc MU.O and Western
Digital Corp WDC.O were set to boost the sector.