U.S. stock futures fell sharply early Wednesday, pointing to a third straight negative day on Wall Street as selling returned to the tech sector.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials tumbled 272 points, or 0.8%, to 33,723.
Futures for the S&P 500 faded 39.75 points, or 1%, to 4,083.25.
Futures for the NASDAQ Composite index stumbled 188.75 points, or 1.4%, to 13,375.75, as Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet and Apple all slid more than 1% in pre-market trading.
Helping the sentiment a bit on Wednesday was better-than-expected results from Target. Shares of the major retailer popped by 4% in premarket trading after it said sales surged 23% last quarter.
Sentiment in the tech sector was dented by a drop in cryptocurrencies including bitcoin. The world’s largest digital token fell below $40,000 for the first time in 14 weeks and last traded around $36,060 apiece. At one point, the price was down 20% in the last 24 hours and it has fallen more than 30% in one week, according to Coinbase.
On Tuesday, China warned financial institutions not to conduct crypto-related business, possibly sparking the selloff.
Tesla, a big holder of bitcoin, declined 2% in pre-market trading. Microstrategy, another company which bought a large amount of bitcoin for its corporate treasury, tanked by 5%. Coinbase, the newly public crypto exchange, fell 3%.
The Federal Reserve publishes the minutes from its April meeting later Wednesday afternoon, which could add to angst about inflation. The Fed kept its easy policies that meeting, but acknowledged that inflation could rise in coming months. The central bank maintains that these price pressures will be transitory
Overseas, in Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.3%, while in Hong Kong, markets were shuttered for holiday.
Oil prices lost $1.33 to $64.16 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices descended $5.50 to $1,862.50 U.S.
