By Medha Singh
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes headed for a lower open on Friday with the tech-heavy Nasdaq set to ease from an all-time high ahead of a round of U.S. business surveys for August.
Euro zone data showed an economic recovery from its deepest downturn on record has stuttered this month, setting up a downbeat tone for IHS Markit’s surveys of the U.S. manufacturing and services sectors due at 9:45 a.m. ET (1345 GMT).
U.S. stocks finished higher on Thursday as investors bet on tech heavyweights including Apple Inc <AAPL.O> and Amazon.com <AMZN.O> to ride out the pandemic while U.S. data painted a picture of a wobbly economic recovery.
Earlier this week, the S&P 500 clinched a record high, recouping the last of its losses caused by the coronavirus-driven slump and joining the Nasdaq in notching new highs.
The Dow still remains about 6% below its peak in February.
“Because we’re at these record levels, people are sort of re-evaluating,” said Chuck Lieberman, chief investment officer at Advisors Capital Management.
“We’re still gradually reopening, and setbacks are on their way. It makes people concerned at times.”
Big banks, which tend to track the economic outlook, slipped in premarket trading. Bank of America Corp <BAC.N>, Citigroup Inc <C.N>, JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> and Goldman Sachs <GS.N> were down between 0.4% and 0.7%.
Investors also worry about a stalemate in talks between House Democrats and the White House over the next coronavirus aid bill as about 28 million Americans continued to collect unemployment cheques.
At 8:37 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 109 points, or 0.39%, S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were down 14.5 points, or 0.43% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were down 26.75 points, or 0.23%.
In a bright spot was Deere & Co <DE.N> which rose 3.3% premarket after the world’s largest farm equipment maker revised up its full-year earnings forecast.
Pfizer <PFE.N> gained 1% after reporting positive additional data from an early-stage study of its experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed in collaboration with German biotech firm BioNTech <BNTX.O22UAy.F>.
U.S.-listed shares of BioNTech <BNTX.O> jumped 5.6%.
Tesla’s shares <TSLA.O> added another 1.8% after surging past the $2,000 mark on Thursday for the first time and extending its rally ahead of an upcoming share split.
(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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