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US equity futures pointed lower Thursday morning, with Dow E-minis down 0.78%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis off 0.57%, and S&P 500 E-minis 0.4% weaker at 06:14 ET. Crude and bond yields drove the mood, with Brent up ~4% near $104 a barrel and the 10-year Treasury yield around 5.33%.
Wolfspeed surged ~16% before the bell after landing a conditional financing commitment of up to $1.5B from the US Department of War. The 30-year senior secured facility, routed through the Office of Strategic Capital, backs domestic silicon carbide and wide-bandgap chip output. Under proposed terms, the government would receive warrants covering as much as 7.5% of the company.
Applied Digital rose ~4% after fiscal first-quarter revenue of $341.9M, a 322% jump from a year earlier, as its AI data-center buildout scaled up.
Haemonetics climbed 8% premarket. Partner CSL said it expects to finish rolling out the company's plasmapheresis platform across the US by the end of 2027.
Palantir Technologies gained 2.3%, shrugging off the broader slide. Goldman Sachs moved the stock to buy, pointing to sovereign AI demand widening the addressable market, while Wedbush's Daniel Ives started coverage at outperform.
Rocket Pharmaceuticals added 2.8% following a Goldman Sachs upgrade.
Chip names drag on sentiment
Broadcom fell nearly 2% on a report that it's assembling more than $50B of financing for the custom AI chips it's building with OpenAI. Investors are weighing how much capital the AI buildout now demands.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing slipped ~1% despite September revenue growing 54.6% year over year and third-quarter revenue reaching $16.03B, ahead of forecasts.
Micron dropped 1.9% on the risk of production disruptions in Taiwan. Advanced Micro Devices lost 1.8%, SanDisk eased 1.7%, and Nvidia ($NVDA) fell 0.9% as traders digested Samsung Electronics' quarterly update, which showed operating profit up 782.5% from a year earlier but just short of lofty expectations.
NXP Semiconductors declined 2.6% after Citi cut it to neutral. Universal Display shed 2.9% on a Citi downgrade to sell, and Nova ($NVMI) slipped 2.9% on a separate Citi cut to neutral.
Marvell Technology eased 1.6% even as management laid out a confident multi-year outlook.
Consumer and industrial movers
Levi Strauss fell between 1% and 3% in choppy premarket trade after third-quarter revenue of $1.61B came in just shy of forecasts. Direct-to-consumer demand softened in the US and Europe, and the sales outlook disappointed, though tariff refunds lifted adjusted profit above estimates.
Lululemon edged ~1% lower on a leadership shake-up. Former Nike and Athleta executive Maggie Gauger becomes chief product officer, with Joseph Godsey taking the operating chief role, as CEO Heidi O'Neill works to fix the North American business.
Caterpillar slid 1.3% after the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Agriculture opened a public comment process on agricultural equipment markets.
Traders are also watching Treasury yields and oil for direction, after September FOMC minutes showed most Fed officials leaning toward another rate hike before year-end, while Governor Christopher Waller hinted a pause remains possible.
