US stocks set to dip as Intel dives, geopolitical concerns linger

By Sruthi Shankar and Pranav Kashyap

Jan 23 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks were set to open lower on Friday, setting the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up for a second consecutive weekly drop, as Intel tumbled on a downbeat outlook and lingering geopolitical concerns kept risk appetite in check.

Stocks have rebounded in the past two sessions following Tuesday’s sharp selloff triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on European allies until Washington was allowed to buy Greenland.

Trump later tempered tariff threats and ruled out taking Greenland by force, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were still set to close the week lower. Safe-haven flows persisted, sending gold to a record high. [GOL/]

A big drag on Friday was chipmaker Intel, which slid 12.8% premarket. The company forecast quarterly revenue and profit below market estimates, saying it struggled to satisfy demand for its server chips used in AI data centers. Its shares have surged about 50% since the start of the year.

“Earnings season has been good, but there have been one or two stocks that have not given a rosy guidance and they fell accordingly as investors took action. Guidance now is more critical than ever,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

“Investors will stay cautious because we have not only earnings, but also the Fed. We don’t expect any change, but it’s the question of what they say in their communique.”

By 8:35 a.m. ET, S&P 500 E-minis were down 15.5 points, or 0.22%. Nasdaq 100 E-minis dropped 76 points, or 0.3%, and Dow E-minis fell 224 points, or 0.45%.

FED AWAITED

The Federal Reserve is expected to hold rates at 3.5%–3.75% next week, but investors will comb through the statement and Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks for signals on what is next. The CMEGroup’s FedWatch tool shows markets penciling in the first cut for June.

After a slate of better-than-expected economic data releases on Thursday, investors await the S&P Global’s business activity surveys for January and University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment data later in the day.

Many of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, including Apple, Tesla and Microsoft, are set to report earnings next week. Their outlooks will be closely watched to see how much juice remains in the growth stories which so far have supported their sky-high valuations.

Driven by a strong U.S. economy and expectations of interest rate cuts this year, the market rally has broadened beyond the megacap names to other pockets. The small-cap Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Transports indexes touched record highs on Thursday.

Among other movers, Nvidia rose 1.1% after Bloomberg News reported Chinese officials have told Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance that they can prepare orders for Nvidia’s H200 AI chips.

Oilfield services provider SLB rose 0.5% after beating estimates for fourth-quarter profit.

Intuitive Surgical rose 2.8% after it beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit and revenue on growing demand for its surgical robots used in minimally invasive procedures.

U.S.-listed shares of silver miners such as Hecla Mining and Coeur Mining rose 2.6% and 0.5%, respectively, as silver prices touched record highs and neared $100-per-ounce mark for the first time.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)