Investing.com - U.S. futures were flat early Wednesday as investors paused on news that more Chinese companies could be blacklisted from purchasing American technology, an escalation that outweighed comments from the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. saying trade negotiations are still on the table.
The U.S. government may blacklist up to five Chinese surveillance companies from purchasing U.S. software goods or components, according to reports that come just a few days after a similar curb on Huawei caused a sell-off of technology stocks. One of the companies named, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology (SZ:002415), fell as much as 10% in the Chinese trading session in response to the news.
Dow futures fell 5 points or 0.602% by 6:41 AM ET (10:41 GMT), while tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 13 points or 0.2% and S&P 500 futures was down 1 point or 0.1%
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) slumped 9% after a federal judge ruled the company had suppressed cellphone chip competition, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) was down 0.3% and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell 1.9%, still suffering from a Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) note that laid out a "bear case" for the stock falling over 90% from its current level.
Retail companies will be in focus after a batch of disappointing earnings on Tuesday. Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) tumbled 10.2% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after its sales figures failed to meet expectations.
Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW) slumped 10% in premarket trade after cutting its outlook for the year on the back of a disappointing first quarter. Target (NYSE:TGT) is also expected to report before the open.
On the economic front, the Federal Reserve will release its meeting minutes from May 1, when it left interest rates unchanged.
In commodities, crude oil fell 0.9% to $62.56 a barrel. Gold futures inched up 0.04% to $1,273.75 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.1% to 97.825.