Wall Street set to open lower as oil prices slump

By Medha Singh

(Reuters) - A steep drop in oil prices and disappointing corporate results pressured U.S. stock market futures on Friday, souring sentiment at the end of a week dominated by concerns over North Korea and trade tensions with China.

Crude oil prices declined more than 2.5 percent, or $2 per barrel, after Saudi Arabia and Russia said they were ready to ease supply curbs that have pushed prices to their highest since 2014.

Energy stocks were the top percentage losers among the S&P 500 components trading premarket, capturing 16 of the top 20 percentage decliners.

Exxon and Chevron both fell more than 1 percent. Service firms Schlumberger, Halliburton, and producers Occidental Petroleum and ConocoPhillips were down between 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent.

The S&P energy index closed down 1.7 percent on Thursday, while the main indexes ended only slightly lower after recovering from what market participants said was a knee-jerk reaction to President Donald Trump cancelling a planned summit.

North Korea said on Friday it was still open to talks with the United States, saying it hoped the "Trump formula" could resolve the standoff over its nuclear weapons program.

"With the long weekend ahead low volume should be expected, paving the way for a range bound trading session," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

Markets are closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.

"When you have light volume is that sometimes it can have a larger impact on the market versus when they (volume) are heavy," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.

At 8:55 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 56 points, or 0.23 percent. S&P 500 e-minis were down 7.25 points, or 0.27 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 3 points, or 0.04 percent.

Among other stocks, Foot Locker surged 14.2 percent after it reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Nike, for whom the footwear retailer is often seen as a leading indicator, gained 1.1 percent.

Gap plunged 7 percent after quarterly same-store sales came below estimates.

Autodesk fell 5 percent after the AutoCAD owner forecast second-quarter profit below expectations.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak on "Financial Stability and Central Bank Transparency" at a conference in Stockholm, Sweden at 09:20 a.m. ET.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Sriraj Kalluvila)