Futures slide as oil price slump hammers energy stocks

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday as a slump in oil prices pounded energy stocks, with investors also bracing for another batch of dour first-quarter earnings reports and economic data.

Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp shed between 3.6% and 4.3% in premarket trading as crude prices fell to levels last seen in 1999 on concerns of oversupply. [O/R]

Wall Street’s main indexes have rallied this month, with the S&P 500 <.spx> ending Friday with its biggest two-week percentage gain since 1974 on a raft of global stimulus and hopes the virus was nearing a peak in the United States.

The benchmark index is up 30% from its March trough, but is still about 15% off its all-time high and analysts have warned of a deep economic slump from the halt in business activity and millions of layoffs.

After U.S. banks kicked off the quarterly earnings season with painful forecasts for 2020, investors will keep a close watch on reports from Halliburton on Monday as well as Delta Air Lines Inc , Southwest Airlines Co and Netflix Inc later in the week.

Surveys on April U.S. manufacturing are due on Thursday.

At 06:22 a.m. EDT, Dow e-minis were down 372 points, or 1.52%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 41.5 points, or 1.43% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 82.5 points, or 0.94%.

SPDR S&P 500 ETFs were down 1.21%.

The S&P 500 index <.spx> closed up 2.68% at 2,874.56 on Friday.

(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru)