Nasdaq 100 futures were lower on Wednesday evening following a sharp sell-off in the regular session.
Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.7%, while S&P 500 futures were down around 0.4%. Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered below the flat line.
A slew of corporate earnings were released after the close. Facebook parent Meta beat on the top and bottom lines in the third quarter, but the company’s Reality Labs division lost $3.7 billion. Meta shares fell 3%. Meanwhile, Align Technology plunged 25% after issuing a weak revenue forecast for the fourth quarter and missing estimates for the third quarter.
The moves follow a brutal trading session, driven in part by a 9.5% fall in Google parent Alphabet. Alphabet’s Class A shares suffered their worst day since March 2020. Late on Tuesday, the company reported revenue at its Google cloud unit that fell short of analyst estimates.
In regular trading on Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 1.4%, ending the day below the 4,200 level that’s widely watched by chart analysts and investors. It was the first time since May that the broader index had closed below that level. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 2.4%, its worst day since 21 February, while the 30-stock Dow lost 0.3%.
The next market catalyst could come on Thursday morning, when traders look to the first estimate for third-quarter gross domestic product, which is expected to have risen 4.7% on an annualised basis, according to Dow Jones. The question now is how long this expected growth will last, especially as economists look for signs of a recession. Weekly jobless claims data will also be released in the morning.
Major earnings are also on the horizon, with Amazon due to report after the close, along with Ford and Chipotle.
