Dow futures slip; Apple, Amazon earnings, jobless claims in focus

investing.com:

Investing.com — U.S. stock futures fell Thursday, continuing the previous session’s sharp selloff in the wake of the surprise U.S. downgrade and ahead of earnings from tech bellwether Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).

By 06:30 ET (10:30 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 50 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded 10 points, or 0.2%, lower and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 40 points, or 0.3%.

The benchmark Wall Street indices closed with hefty losses Wednesday after Fitch downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating to AA+ from AAA late Tuesday, citing likely fiscal deterioration over the next three years as well as the usual protracted debt ceiling negotiations.

The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 350 points, or 1%, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.4% and the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 2.2%, the worst day since February for the index.

While sentiment remains fragile, the focus Thursday is likely to be on Apple, the largest company in the world according to market capitalization, and online retail behemoth Amazon as they are scheduled to announce their quarterly earnings, in what has already been a busy week of corporate results.

Apple is likely to report a third straight quarter of declining revenue, with details about its current quarter, which ends in September, likely to be in focus. Investors may also be interested if the iPhone maker has any plans to integrate artificial intelligence into its operations.

At Amazon, the group's key cloud computing division will be in the spotlight, with the retail giant having previously flagged that a deceleration in growth in the prior quarter at the unit, Amazon Web Services, continued into April.

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