Investing.com – Dow futures turned sharply lower Tuesday after hopes that U.K. lawmakers would approve Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal were dashed by the U.K.'s government's top lawyer.
Dow futures fell 76 points or 0.3% by 7:35AM ET (11:35GMT), while Boeing (NYSE:BA) fell another 2% in premarket trading after closing down 5.33% on Monday.
Elsewhere, the S&P 500 futures fell 2.6 points or 0.1% while and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures gave up a 0.1% gain to trade essentially flat.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said that tweaks to the language of the withdrawal agreement hammered out by May and EU negotiators over two years weren't enough to guarantee that the U.K. wouldn't be locked into a customs union with the EU after Brexit. As a result, the Brexiteers in May's Conservative Party are almost certain to vote against the deal in a parliamentary vote later Tuesday, ensuring it will fail.
"Now the deal will fail this evening by probably 100+ votes," Blackrock (NYSE:BLK) portfolio manager Rupert Harrison in London said via Twitter.
The margin is important because some had hoped that a narrow defeat would have allowed May to carry on pressing for concessions from the EU in the hope of getting a deal over the line.
Futures had been tending higher before the announcement, with the exception of the Dow, which was dragged down for the second consecutive day by index heavy-weight Boeing, after its 737 Max 8 airplanes were grounded by more international aviation regulators.
Nearly 40% of the 737 Max around the world are parked, after Australia, Singapore and several Latin American authorities joined China and Indonesia in raising concerns about one of the airline’s biggest money-makers. The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority has said it has no plans to ground the jet, creating an unusual situation in which the aircraft’s home regulator, in this case, the FAA, is lagging its international peers.
Boeing is the Dow’s heaviest-weighted component, which means any big movement in the plane manufacturer can cause steep declines on the index.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) gained 0.38% after it rolled out a zero-fee exchange-traded fund in an effort to gain market share in passive investing.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell 1.7% after rising 2.4% on Monday as it hastily scrapped a plan to close most of its showrooms. Home security company ADT Inc (NYSE:ADT) plunged 12.9% after its fourth-quarter results came in weaker than expected.
Coming up later Tuesday, February inflation data are due at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT).
In commodities, gold futures gained 0.4% to $1,296.05 a troy ounce, while crude oil rose 0.9% to $57.34 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.15% to 97.03.