US STOCKS-Nasdaq futures deepen slide ahead of Powell speech

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* Futures: Dow up 0.04%, S&P down 0.36%, Nasdaq off 1.34%

By Devik Jain
Feb 23 (Reuters) - Futures tracking the Nasdaq index pointed
to a more than 1% drop at the open on Tuesday as investors sold
off high-flying technology stocks on valuation concerns ahead of
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's testimony in Congress.
Powell is expected to reassure investors that the central
bank will tolerate a faster pace of price increases despite
concerns over a potential pick-up in inflation and a rise in
bond yields.
The hearing before the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled
to begin at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) and will be Powell's first
since Democrats won the White House and control of both chambers
of Congress. The Nasdaq .IXIC and the benchmark S&P 500 .SPX posted
their biggest one-day percentage declines in February on Monday
as inflation fears and overheating in asset markets hit the so
called "stay-at-home" winner stocks that had led the Wall Street
rally from the pandemic lows.
Early trading pointed to another round of losses for
technology-related stocks, with shares of Netflix Inc NFLX.O ,
Facebook Inc FB.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , Microsoft Corp
MSFT.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O and Apple Inc AAPL.O falling
between 1.1% and 2%.
Value stocks .IVX , which are poised to benefit from an
economic rebound, have outperformed growth shares .IGX in
February.
At 7:16 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 13 points, or
0.04%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 14 points, or 0.36%,
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 177.25 points, or
1.34%.
Occidental Petroleum Corp OXY.N slipped 1.9% after the oil
producer posted a larger-than-expected fourth-quarter loss.

Home Depot Inc HD.N fell 2.5% after the home improvement
retailer warned that it was unable to predict how consumer
spending would evolve this year. Cryptocurrency miners Riot Blockchain Inc RIOT.O and
Marathon Patent Group Inc MARA.O slumped 15% and 17%,
respectively, while Bitcoin bank Silvergate Capital Corp SI.N
slid 9.5% as Bitcoin BTC=BTSP dropped nearly 17% to $45,000.
Tesla Inc TSLA.O , which had invested $1.5 billion in the
cryptocurrency, also tumbled 4.5% and was set to plunge into the
red for the year. U.S. consumer confidence data is due at 10 a.m ET, the
reading of which is expected to hit 90 in February.