【US Pre-Market】US Futures and Chip Stocks Fall as Global Bond Sell-Off Deepens; Gold Drops Below $4,400, Brent Crude Tops $92

TradingKey - On Tuesday (September 1) Eastern Time, futures on the three major US stock indices fell across the board in pre-market trading. Two supertankers were hit by unidentified projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, causing geopolitical risks to escalate suddenly and driving international oil prices higher. Meanwhile, the global bond sell-off continued, with long-term government bond yields in major economies rising to multi-year highs and market risk appetite cooling noticeably.

As of press time, Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.97%, S&P 500 futures dropped 0.49%, and Dow 30 futures slid 0.57%.

Source: Investing

In commodities, gold (XAUUSD) fell below $4,400/ounce, while silver (XAGUSD) dropped below $65/ounce, with intraday losses expanding to around 3%. A broad rise in global government bond yields, combined with the continuous climb of the US dollar index, triggered a notable sell-off in the precious metals market.

International oil prices extended their rally, with WTI crude (USOIL) briefly climbing to $88/barrel and Brent crude (UKOIL) breaking above $92/barrel. Escalating security risks in the Strait of Hormuz further heightened market concerns over disruptions to global crude transportation and supply.

In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTCUSD) pulled back after surging higher, currently oscillating around $78,000.

Market Moves

Semiconductor and memory chip stocks generally fell in pre-market trading. SanDisk (SNDK) fell over 2%, Micron Technology (MU), Western Digital (WDC), Intel (INTC), Marvell Technology (MRVL), and Qualcomm (QCOM) dropped over 1%, while SK Hynix (SKHY) fell about 1%.

GoPro (GPRO) surged over 79% in pre-market trading. According to reports, YouTube star Mark Fischbach holds approximately 13.5 million Class A common shares of GoPro, representing 8.5% of the class, making him the company's largest Class A shareholder. Fischbach believes GoPro is currently undervalued and hopes the company will achieve a business turnaround. Regulatory filings show that the investment is a passive stake and not intended to influence control of the company.

Fervo Energy jumped over 19% in pre-market trading at one point. According to reports, the company signed a geothermal power supply agreement of nearly 400 megawatts with Google (GOOGL). Market expectations suggest that growing power demand from data centers will bring more commercial opportunities for stable clean energy sources like geothermal power.

Novartis (NVS) rose over 5% in pre-market trading. The company announced that its oral BTK inhibitor remibrutinib met its primary endpoint in two Phase 3 trials for relapsing multiple sclerosis. Compared with teriflunomide, the drug significantly reduced the annualized relapse rate in patients and decreased inflammatory brain lesions, with no liver safety signals identified. Novartis plans to submit marketing applications to global regulatory authorities.

Market News

Anthropic signs $35 billion cloud computing agreement. According to reports, Anthropic has signed a cloud computing agreement worth approximately $35 billion with Nvidia-backed cloud provider Lambda to expand computing power capacity for AI products such as Claude. The project will use a roughly 350-megawatt data center developed by Hut 8 (HUT) in Nueces County, Texas, U.S.

Nvidia plans to invest $3.5 billion in MediaTek. Nvidia (NVDA) will invest $3.5 billion in MediaTek in the form of convertible bonds, with both parties also planning to expand collaboration in AI data centers. MediaTek will integrate Nvidia interconnect technologies such as NVLink Fusion and NVHBM. Affected by general weakness in tech stocks, Nvidia fell about 1.26% in pre-market trading.

Global bond market sell-off continues. Rising energy prices, heating inflation expectations, and shifting major central bank policy outlooks drove government bond yields in Europe, the U.S., and Japan generally higher. Japan's 10-year government bond yield broke above 3%, reaching its highest level since 1996; Japan's 30-year government bond yield rose above 4.18%, setting a record high.

The UK 30-year government bond yield rose to 5.88%, continuing to hit its highest level since 1998; Germany's 10-year government bond yield rose to 3.339%, the highest since 2011. The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.28%, up about 4 basis points on the day, approaching recent highs.

Tesla's August sales in Spain fall nearly 79% year-over-year. Data from Spanish auto industry association ANFAC shows that Tesla (TSLA) sold only 304 vehicles locally in August, down 78.8% year-over-year. However, cumulative sales in the first eight months of the year still grew by 4.6% year-over-year, while sales of electrified vehicles, including pure electric and hybrid models, grew by 34.1% over the same period.

Medtronic reports earnings, raises full-year guidance. Medtronic (MDT) reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.45 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, beating the market expectation of $1.39; revenue grew 13.7% year-over-year to $9.8 billion, also exceeding expectations of $9.55 billion. The company simultaneously raised its full-year outlook, pushing its stock price up by about 5%.

Key Data and Events Preview

At 9:45 a.m. ET, the U.S. will release the final August S&P Global Manufacturing PMI.

At 10:00 a.m. ET, the U.S. will release the August ISM Manufacturing PMI.

After the U.S. market close, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Dell Technologies (DELL) will report quarterly earnings.