US STOCKS-Wall St set for weak start on Trump tariffs, Amazon results, soft payrolls

By Nikhil Sharma and Sukriti Gupta

Aug 1 (Reuters) - Futures pointed to a sharply lower open on Friday as new U.S. tariffs on dozens of trading partners and Amazon's unimpressive earnings weighed on sentiment, while a weaker payrolls report added to risk aversion.

Hours ahead of the tariff deadline, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing duties ranging from 10% to 41% on U.S. imports from countries including Canada, Brazil, India and Taiwan.

A Labor Department report showed the U.S. economy added less-than-expected 73,000 jobs in July, pointing to a sharp moderation in the labor market amid trade uncertainties.

The unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, in line with expectations.

"This was a pretty disappointing report ... markets are getting a little bit more worried about the state of the labor market in the aftermath of today's report," said BeiChen Lin, senior investment strategist at Russell Investments.

The data forced traders to raise their bets for a September interest rate cut to 62.9% from 41.2% earlier in the day, according to CME's FedWatch tool.

At 8:47 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis YMcv1 were down 354 points, or 0.8%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were down 58 points, or 0.92%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were down 249 points, or 1.08%.

The CBOE Volatility index .VIX, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, jumped to a more than two-week high and was last up 18.18 points.

Earlier in the week, stronger-than-expected second-quarter GDP report and an uptick in June inflation that influenced expectations on the rate path.

Trump said on Friday the Federal Reserve's board should assume control if Chair Jerome Powell continues to refuse to lower interest rates.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, despite pressure from Trump to cut rates, has indicated the central bank was in no rush to do so.

Meanwhile, Amazon AMZN.O slid 8.3% in premarket trading after growth in its cloud computing unit failed to impress investors, in contrast to robust gains reported by AI-focused rivals Alphabet GOOGL.O and Microsoft MSFT.O.

Apple AAPL.O posted its current-quarter revenue forecast well above Wall Street estimates, but CEO Tim Cook warned U.S. tariffs would add $1.1 billion in costs over the period. The stock was up 1.5%.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 .SPX and the Nasdaq .IXIC retreated from intraday record highs to end lower as AI-driven enthusiasm following blockbuster earnings from Microsoft and Meta Platforms META.O fizzled out.

Microsoft briefly surpassed $4 trillion in market value, becoming only the second publicly traded company to reach this milestone after Nvidia NVDA.O.

In other earnings-related moves, Coinbase Global COIN.O shed 11.1% after the crypto exchange reported a drop in adjusted profit for the second quarter, marred by weaker trading activity amid reduced cryptocurrency volatility.