By Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta
(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures were muted on Friday, with Wall Street’s main indexes on track for their second-straight week of gains, while uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s trade policies also prevailed.
Tariffs are high on investors’ minds after Trump referred to the policies multiple times at separate events this week but did little to lay out entire details of the surcharges he plans to impose on trade partners of the United States.
The president has said tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union could be announced on Feb. 1, but analysts say major plans could be announced on April 1 – the date by when federal agencies are expected to complete reviews of a range of trade issues.
Investors are concerned that tariffs could spark a global trade war, add to inflation pressures and slow the pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The central bank is expected to leave interest rates unchanged next week at its first policy meeting of the year.
“The scope and severity of possible tariff outcomes remain uncertain. Our base case, to which we assign a 50% probability, is for the U.S. effective tariff rate on China to rise to 30%, and for China to retaliate,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer, global wealth management at UBS.
“We also expect efforts to limit transshipments, protect U.S. technology interests, and impose tariffs on some EU exports.”
At 7:22 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 98 points, or 0.22%, E-minis were down 4.5 points, or 0.07%, and E-minis were down 5.75 points, or 0.03%.
Later in the day, markets will assess a preliminary private survey on manufacturing and services activity for January and the University of Michigan’s final estimate on consumer sentiment.
In premarket trading, Boeing (NYSE:) lost 1.6% after warning that it expects a fourth-quarter loss of about $4 billion to close a rocky year for the planemaker. The company is expected to report quarterly results on Tuesday.
Investors were also taking a pause after the benchmark S&P 500 closed Thursday’s session at a record high for the second time in over a month after Trump called for taxes, oil prices and interest rates to be lowered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
On a weekly basis, Wall Street’s main indexes are set for their second straight week of advances, with the blue-chip Dow on track for its biggest weekly jump since October 2022, aided by Trump’s artificial intelligence investment plans, signs of cooling inflation and robust earnings from big banks in the previous week.
Among others, Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:) dropped 3.7% after forecasting first-quarter profit below analysts’ estimates.
American Express (NYSE:) reported a 12% jump in fourth-quarter profit. Shares, however, fell 2.6%.
Verizon Communications (NYSE:) dipped 0.3% after forecasting annual free cash flow and adjusted profit below estimates.
The following week will see quarterly reports from megacaps such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:), Meta (NASDAQ:), Apple (NASDAQ:) and Tesla (NASDAQ:).
U.S.-listed shares of Chinese companies such as JD (NASDAQ:).Com rose 3.1%, Xpeng (NYSE:) added 3% and Alibaba (NYSE:) climbed 1.1% after Trump suggested in an interview that tariffs against China could be avoided.
