U.S. stock futures wavered and bond yields ticked up to multi-month highs, as uncertainty lingered about the future of heavily indebted property giant China Evergrande Group.
Futures tied to blue-chip index and the broader S&P 500 both edged down 0.3% Friday. Technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 futures weakened 0.5%. On Thursday, all three indexes rebounded, paring losses from earlier in the week.
“There has been a growing feeling that there is a pullback waiting,” said
Seema Shah,
chief strategist at
“The market is so vulnerable to any kind of shock right now given growth is slowing and valuations are looking stretched.”
Markets have been whipsawed this week by fears that the possible collapse of Evergrande could spill over into global markets and add to an already darkening outlook for global growth. Evergrande inched closer to a potential default Friday as a deadline on a key interest payment to its U.S. dollar bondholders passed without any announcement.
“It is one of the largest companies in the second largest economy in the world and if something pulls down Chinese growth it is going to pull down global growth,” said Ms. Shah.
The company’s shares fell 11.6% Friday in Hong Kong, and are down more than 84% this year.
Overall, in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index weakened 0.8%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 2.1%.
In U.S. off hours trading,
surged 19% off hours after The Wall Street Journal reported the People Magazine publisher was in talks to be acquired by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp.
Shares of
fell 4% in premarket trading after the sportswear giant lowered revenue guidance, citing supply-chain disruptions in Asia. Rival Adidas slipped 3% in European trading. Shares in warehouse grocery chain
ticked up 0.8% after the warehouse grocery giant reported quarterly sales.
Markets were also contending with a rise in government bond yields, after several central banks—including the Federal Reserve—this week signaled they were on the path toward removing pandemic-era stimulus measures. The yield on the benchmark 10-Year U.S. Treasury note rose to 1.437% Friday, from 1.408% Thursday, hitting its highest level since July. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
In commodity markets, Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 0.3% to $76.95 a barrel. Gold prices rose 0.3%.
Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.8%. Drugmaker AstraZeneca rose nearly 3% after reporting results on a prostate cancer…
Read More: Stock Futures Weaken After Evergrande Payment Deadline Passes