US stock futures slip as chipmaker earnings and CPI data loom large

Markets opened the week on uncertain footing, with S&P 500 futures edging down roughly 0.1% in premarket trading as investors braced for a stretch of earnings reports that could either validate or puncture the semiconductor sector’s lofty valuations. Nasdaq 100 futures tracked the same cautious drift, also easing around 0.1%. The S&P 500 hit all-time highs on August 7 after soft July jobs data nudged expectations toward potential Federal Reserve rate cuts. The AI earnings gauntlet Applied Materials, Lumentum Holdings, and Cisco Systems are all scheduled to report, with investors treating the results less as individual company scorecards and more as a collective temperature check on AI-related hardware demand. AMD posted $11.5 billion in quarterly revenue around August 5, a figure that narrowly cleared analyst estimates. Instead, AMD shares fell roughly 8% after Elon Musk raised strategic concerns about competing chip architectures, turning a solid beat into a market disappointment. Intel and Micron have also absorbed sharp intraday losses at various points through 2026, each sell-off feeding a broader debate about whether the semiconductor upcycle is hitting a ceiling or me...