US pre-open: Futures lower as traders return from Easter break
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Monday 21 Apr 2025
(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were in the red on Monday as traders got set to return from the Easter long-weekend break.
As of 1245 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 1.11%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 1.29% and 1.49% lower, respectively.
The Dow closed 527.16 points lower on Thursday, extending losses recorded in the previous session on the back of a warning from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that the central bank could very well find itself in somewhat of a quandary when it comes to its efforts to both control inflation and support economic growth.
Powell noted that with elevated uncertainty surrounding the impact of Donald Trump's recently implemented tariffs on the US economy, he now expects to see inflation rise and growth slow, undermining both elements of the Fed's dual mandate of ensuring price stability while maximising employment and making it harder for the central bank to justify loosening monetary policy and further.
"We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension," Powell said. "If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close."
Powell said Trump's tariffs were "likely to move us further away" from its goals for "the balance of this year", while Chicago Fed head Austan Goolsbee cautioned that the tariffs will potentially cause the US economy to "fall off" by the summer.
Trump later said Powell's termination "can't come fast enough", raising the question of whether he intends to replace Powell when his term expires in 2026 or outright fire him, which the Fed head has repeatedly cautioned would be illegal, leading to fresh questions around the central bank's independence.
No major data points or corporate earnings were scheduled for release on Monday.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com
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