Wall St set to fall at open after weak jobs data; Amazon, Intel tank
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US job growth misses expectations; unemployment rate rises
Bets up on a half-percentage-point Fed rate cut in September
Chevron down after Q2 profit miss
Futures down: Dow 1.17%, S&P 500 1.69%, Nasdaq 2.49%
Updated at 8:46 a.m. ET/1246 GMT
By Ankika Biswas and Shubham Batra
Aug 2 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were poised to slump at the openon Friday after weak employment numbers exacerbated worries of a slowdown in the U.S. economy, withAmazon and Intel's downbeat forecasts also flattening megacap tech and chip stocks.
A Labor Department report showednonfarm payrolls rose by 114,000 jobs in July, sharply lower than the 175,000 additions estimated by economists polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate ticked higher, to 4.3%, from 4.1% a month ago.
With fresh evidence of a weakening labor market, traders are now betting the U.S. Federal Reserve will deliver a big half-percentage-point rate cut in September versus the 25-bps cut expected before the data.
At 8:46 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 474 points, or 1.17%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 92.75 points, or 1.69%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 474.5 points, or 2.49%.
"Now the question isn't will they cut in September, but by how much? With the Sahm rule (a recession gauge) officially being triggered, both the talk of recession and criticism of the Fed will grow louder," said Jay Woods, chief global strategist, Freedom Capital Markets.
On the earnings front, Amazon.com AMZN.O slumped 9.9% in premarket trading after the company reported slowing online sales growth in the second quarter and said cautious consumers were seeking out cheaper purchase options.
Intel INTC.O tumbled 24.5% after forecasting third-quarter revenue below estimates and suspending its dividend, starting in the fourth quarter.
Other chip stocks were also hit and were set to extend Thursday's losses.Nvidia NVDA.O fell 5%, Qualcomm QCOM.O was lower by 3%, Broadcom AVGO.O lost 3.8%, Micron Technology MU.O shed 4.4%and Arm Holdings ARM.O was down 5%.
Apple AAPL.O inched 1.3% lower in a broader weakness in megacaps, even asit posted better-than-expected third-quarter iPhone sales and forecast more gains, betting on AI to attract buyers.
Other megacaps such as Microsoft MSFT.O and Alphabet GOOGL.O shed around 2% each. Meta META.O also dropped, losing 2% after soaring on Thursday following upbeatresults.
Concerns about thedominance of the "Magnificent Seven" group of stocks persist as earnings from most of these Big Tech companies have failed to enthuse investors, underscoring fears oftheir valuations being inflated.
Wall Street's "fear gauge" .VIX breached the long-term average level of 20 points and touching its highest level since last October.
Nasdaq 100 futures NQcv1 were trading 10% below their recordclosing high, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite .IXIC ended nearly 8% below its own all-time closing level in July.
Futures tracking the domestically focused small-cap Russell 2000 index RTYcv1 dropped 3.6%.
All the three majorindexes kicked off August with steep declines on Thursday after a round of economic data spurred worries ofa faster-than-expected economic slowdown, with the U.S. Federal Reserve maintaining a restrictive monetary policy.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX, the tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC and the blue-chip Dow .DJI are on track to log losses for a week in whichthe Fed opened the door to a September interest-rate cut.
Among other movers, Snap SNAP.N lost 19.6% after forecasting current-quarter results below expectations.
Chevron Corp CVX.N slipped 1.8% after the oilgiant missed estimates for second-quarter profit, hurt by weak refining margins.
Reporting by Ankika Biswas, Shubham Batra and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Pooja Desai
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