Futures slip ahead of bank earnings

(Reuters) – Wall Street futures slipped on Friday as investors awaited earnings from big U.S. banks for signs of stress in the sector and the economy after the failure of two mid-sized lenders last month sparked concerns about a potential recession.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup Inc were muted in premarket trading ahead of their quarterly results.

Most Wall Street banks are likely to report lower quarterly earnings and face a dour outlook for the rest of the year, with last months regional banking crisis and a slowing economy expected to hurt profitability.

However, data on Wednesday showed the Federal Reserves lending to banks eased further in the latest week, signaling that while the absolute levels of emergency credit remain high, financial sector strains are continuing to ease.

The S&P 500 banks index has lagged the broader S&P 500 this year.

The S&P 500 closed at a two-month high on Thursday as economic data showed cooling inflation and a loosening labor market, fueling optimism that the Fed could be nearing the end of its aggressive interest rate-hike cycle.

Data on Friday is expected to show retail sales slipped 0.4% in March, on a month-over-month basis, likely maintaining the pace of decline in February. The University of Michigans consumer sentiment index for April is also due later in the day.

Regional bank PNC Financial Services Group Inc, the worlds largest asset manager BlackRock Inc and health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc are among the other companies set to report results on Friday.

At 5:39 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 96 points, or 0.28%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 6.75 points, or 0.16%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 34.75 points, or 0.26%.

Boeing Co fell 4.6% after the planemaker halted deliveries of some 737 MAXs due to a supplier quality problem by Spirit AeroSystems.

Spirit AeroSystems shares tumbled 10.2%.

Lucid Group Inc dropped 6.5% after the luxury electric-car maker reported first-quarter production and delivery figures that were lower than the preceding three months.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)