Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday, as a violent selloff in precious metals unsettled investors at the start of a week packed with corporate earnings and major economic data.
Gold dropped as much as 6% and silver tumbled 10%, as commodity exchange CME Group boosted margin requirements for the precious metals following a historic plunge on Friday. The rout rippled across markets as leveraged investors were forced to unwind positions to meet margin calls.
U.S.-listings of gold
and silver miners dropped in premarket trading. Newmont down 2.2%, while Barrick Mining and Kinross Gold dropped 2.8% and 3.2%, respectively.
Hecla Mining and Coeur Mining slipped over 2.7% each.
The metals selloff deepened last week after U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair to replace Jerome Powell in May, a move that investors largely viewed as hawkish.
Shares of energy companies dropped as oil prices fell 5%, after Trump said Iran was "seriously talking" with Washington, signalling de-escalation and easing supply disruption concerns. Exxon Mobil and Chevron fell over 1.5% each. [O/R]
At 05:29 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 117 points, or 0.24%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 41 points, or 0.59% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 222 points, or 0.86%.
The volatility VIX index climbed to 19.11, hovering near a two‑week high after last week's choppy stretch triggered by mixed mega‑cap earnings and heightened policy uncertainty stemming from Trump's pick of Warsh.
Tech mega-caps slipped in premarket trading, with Nvidia and Tesla down nearly 2% each, while Meta and Alphabet lost 1.4% and 0.9%, respectively.
Microsoft and Amazon lost over 0.8% each.
Investors face another heavy week of tech earnings, with 128 of S&P 500 companies expected to report results, including Alphabet, Amazon and AMD.
Market reaction to last week's tech results underscored the narrowing tolerance for costly capital‑spending plans unless companies can show accelerating growth.
Microsoft shares notched their worst week since March 2020 on Friday, after cloud revenue disappointed, heightening scrutiny over whether the industry's multi-billion dollar artificial‑intelligence investments will begin to generate meaningful returns.
Oracle dropped 3.7% after the company said it expects to raise $45 billion to $50 billion in debt and equity this year.
The U.S. entered what is expected to be a brief shutdown on Saturday after Congress failed to approve a deal to keep a wide swath of operations funded.
Economic data this week will provide several checkpoints on the health of the U.S. economy.
January manufacturing PMI data is due later on Monday, followed by S&P Global's composite PMI on Wednesday. Labor‑market indicators take center stage later in the week with JOLTS, jobless claims and Friday's nonfarm payrolls report.
(Reporting by Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
