Futures dip as U.S. coronavirus death toll jumps

By Uday Sampath Kumar

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Wednesday as the United States posted a record single-day jump of more than 1,800 coronavirus deaths, grinding out optimism around early signs of the outbreak slowing.

Despite strong early gains on Tuesday after health officials said the pandemic may kill fewer Americans than recent projections, the three major indexes ended lower as oil prices tumbled.

New York, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, was one of several states to post their highest number of daily virus-related fatalities on Tuesday, with total infections in the country approaching 400,000.

Meanwhile, Tesla Inc became the latest U.S. company to furlough staff and cut salaries during a shut down of its U.S. production facilities.

At 05:34 a.m. EDT, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 28 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.25 points, or 0.16% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 0.75 points, or 0.01%.

SPDR S&P 500 ETFs were down 0.46%.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)