Wall Street trended lower in premarket trading early Thursday as the crash of another Boeing passenger jet dominated headlines and sent the troubled aerospace giant’s stock spiraling.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each fell 0.5% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.7%.
Boeing shares tumbled more than 8% after Air India said a London-bound flight crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad airport Thursday with 242 passengers and crew onboard.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a residential area near the airport five minutes after taking off. The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known.
The crash comes days before the opening of the Paris Air Show, a major aviation expo where Boeing and European rival Airbus will showcase their aircraft and battle for jet orders from airline customers.
Boeing has been mired in financial and regulatory trouble for more than six years after Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia in late 2018, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew.
Boeing seemed to finally be emerging from the deep hole it was in after that pair of crashes, but that now appears to be short-lived.
Last month, Boeing announced a pair of major orders in the Middle East during a visit to the region by President Donald Trump. Boeing shares were up close to 25% this year before Thursday’s crash.
Oracle climbed 8.5% after the software maker beat Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and raised its forecast.
Coming later Thursday are the latest government reports on the labor market and inflation at the wholesale level.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX lost 1.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.8%. Britain’s FTSE 100 was nearly unchanged.
In Asian trading, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.5% to 38,216.06.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 0.5% to 24,234.80, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 3,404.66.
In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.9% to 2,933.44, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% higher to 8,604.50.
Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.8%.
In energy trading early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost $1.32 to $66.83 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed $1.30 to $68.47 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar slipped to 143.54 Japanese yen from 144.60 yen. The euro rose to $1.1603 from $1.1487.
