By Devik Jain

(Reuters] – U.S. stock futures were lower Monday morning as growth stocks fell again. This week, investors will be focusing their attention on the Federal Reserve meeting where they are expected to increase interest rates.

Stocks of megacap growth fell in premarket trade, with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ) Inc. falling 1.6%. Amazon.com (NASDAQ.) declined 1.8% and is expected to continue its steep declines since last week.

Apple (NASDAQ) fell 0.7% after EU antitrust regulators accused it of restricting access for rivals to its mobile wallet technology.

Wall Street suffered its worst day since 2020, with dismal earnings estimates from tech giants Apple and Amazon.

Fed policymakers are expected to announce a series aggressive interest rate rises, at least up until summer. Traders expect a 92.8% chance for a 50-basis points hike Wednesday. [IRPR]

This meeting will not include any economic projections or dots plot projections. However, the market will be paying close attention to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference in order to get clues about interest rates and reductions in balance sheets.

Everyone knows that the rate increase is imminent. But, people remain a bit confused about what Powell’s guidance will look like. “Is it going to increase to 50 basis point again or will it go up to 75 basis?,” Thomas Hayes from Great Hill Capital said.

In 2022 the decline has been 13.3%, which is its worst four-month drop since 1939. This was due to rising bond yields and China’s conflict with Ukraine.

8.11 AM ET ET fell 25 points (or 0.08%), and was down 12.5 point (0.3%), while they were down 60.25, or0.47%.

So far, the quarterly earnings season is performing better than expected. Of the 275 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings till Friday, 80.4% have topped Wall Street’s expectations.

Pharmacists Pfizer Inc (NYSE 🙂 Moderna (NASDAQ) Inc., Coffee Chain Starbucks Corp (NASDAQ) – Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ:) Inc (NYSE:) Co) are just a few of the results reported by companies this week.

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ) soared 2.6% following Warren Buffett’s announcement that Berkshire Hathaway Inc had taken a 9.5% share in “Call of Duty”.

Occidental Petroleum (NYSE) dropped 1.6% as oil prices plunged over 3% due to concerns about China’s weak economic growth. [O/R]

Spirit Airlines (NYSE) dropped 9.4% after JetBlue Airways Corp’s (33/per-share) takeover proposal for a ultra-low-cost carrier turned down. The company claimed that it was unlikely to win approval from the government regulators. JetBlue shares rose 2%.

ISM April Manufacturing Activity Data is Due at 10:10 a.m. ET.