The major indices were pointing to a rather mixed start on Wall Street on Friday, after shares plunged on Thursday on fears of a looming global trade war when President Donald Trump unveiled trade tariffs against Chin of up to US$60bn
China has fired its first shot back at Trump, imposing tariffs against US$3bn worth of US goods, which cover fruits, nuts wine and stainless steel pipes. But that may not be the end of the tit-for-tat tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures was down 0.12%, while the Dow futures were up 0.1%.
The S&P500 futures was pointing up 0.02% after moving into negative and positive territories, and the Nasdaq-100 futures was down south at 0.22%.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones slipped by 2.93% or 724.42 points to close the day at 23,957.89 while the S&P500 lost 2.52% and the Nasdaq dipped 2.43%.
Moving from the looming trade war, some good news ... Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) seems to be having a good day, up 4% pre-market after its third quarter results beat market expectations on sales, although it did turn in a loss.
Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) gained entry into Goldman Sachs' 'Conviction' list. Goldman sees Cisco's end markets as "healthy and improving."
Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) issued a statement, saying that it is evaluating options for its consumer healthcare unit after GlaxoSmithKline dropped out of the bidding, a day after Reckitt Benckiser also pulled out.
Pfizer has said that it has not yet made a decision on what it plans to do - a sale, spin-off or some other deal.
Micro Technology Inc's (NASDAQ:MU) EPS beat the market's expectations but it did warn that nitrogen supply disruptions at one of its production facilities will have a 2-3% impact on production in the current quarter.
General Mills Inc (NYSE:GIS), saw its shares upgraded to 'positive' from 'neutral' by Susquehanna, after its shares took a tumble following its quarterly earnings report.
KB Home's (NYSE:KBH) revenue was below forecast despite reporting market-beating quarterly profits.