US stock futures fell on Thursday, the first day of September, as traders remained concerned about the potential for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 143 points, or 0.4%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.4% and 0.7%, respectively.
The moves came as the yield on the 2-year US Treasury rose to 3.516%, the highest level since November 2007, at one point on Thursday.
Nvidia shares also contributed to the losses, falling more than 5% in premarket trading after the chipmaker said the US government is restricting some sales to China.
The major averages are coming off four straight days of losses. On Wednesday, the last day of August, the Dow fell almost 0.9%. The S&P 500 lost about 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite fell about 0.6%.
The Dow closed the month up about 4.1%, while the S&P and Nasdaq posted losses of 4.2% and 4.6%, respectively.
Investors are debating whether stocks will challenge June lows again in September, a historically poor month for markets, after weighing recent comments from Fed officials that show no signs of letting up on rate hikes interest
“If we test the lows again, I think it will happen in September,” SoFi’s Liz Young said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Wednesday. However, he added: “I think in order to do that, something would have to be materially worse than it was on June 16,” when the stock bottomed, such as earnings revisions coming in worse than investors expected.