US STOCKS-Futures slip as bank stocks fall on hedge fund default concerns

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* Futures down: Dow 0.38%, S&P 0.37%, Nasdaq 0.25%

By Devik Jain
March 29 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures dropped on
Monday after Wall Street's surge in the prior session as major
lenders came under pressure on concerns over possible spillover
effects of a hedge fund's default on margin calls.
Nomura 8604.T and Credit Suisse CSGN.S warned of
significant losses after the U.S. hedge fund, named by sources
as Archegos Capital, defaulted, hitting shares in some big U.S.
media and Chinese tech companies.
The news has sparked fears that other lenders could be in
the process of exiting these positions too. Shares in Bank of America Corp BAC.N , Citigroup Inc C.N ,
JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N , Goldman Sachs GS.N , Wells Fargo &
Co WFC.N and Morgan Stanley MS.N dropped between 0.8% and
3.3% in premarket trading.
Shares in Discovery Inc DISCA.O rose about 5% after
tumbling 27% on Friday, while U.S.-listed shares of Tencent (HK:0700)
Music TME.N rose 4% after nearly halving in value last week.
ViacomCBS VIAC.O , Baidu BIDU.O and VIPShop VIPS.N fell
between 0.2% and 1.5%.
"This incident reminded markets of the dark side of
leverage, likely leading some players to cut their risk exposure
near record highs to avoid any serious losses if the selling
snowballs," said Marios Hadjikyriacos, investment analyst at
online broker XM in Cyprus.
Wall Street's main indexes surged over 1% in a late-session
rally on Friday as investors looking to rebalance their
portfolios at the end of the quarter, piled into economy-linked
banks, energy, materials as well as technology names.
The Dow and the S&P 500 are less than 1% from their record
highs, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is still about 7.1% from its
February all-time high.
At 06:38 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were down 124 points,
or 0.38%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were down 14.5 points, or
0.37% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were down 32.75 points, or
0.25%.