Wall Street on Friday was poised to claw back some of its losses from a day earlier after some familiar names in the tech sector reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results.
Futures for S&P 500 rose 0.7% while futures for the Dow Jones industrials inched up 0.2%. Nasdaq futures rose a 1.6%, propelled by a soaring Amazon. All three indices are poised to finish the week with gains.
Amazon jumped 12.5% after it easily surpassed analysts’ third-quarter sales and profit targets. Both saw double-digit growth from a year ago, fueled by the company’s booming cloud computing business and strong spending by customers looking for deals amid persistent inflation.
Apple saw a more modest rise in its shares overnight after its results also exceeded analyst projections, despite being caught in the crosshairs of a global trade war. The company is also scrambling to catch up to its Big Tech peers in the artificial intelligence race.
Apple’s performance was driven largely by strong initial demand for its iPhone 17 lineup that went on sale last month. Its shares rose 2% before the bell.
Online message board Reddit regained most of its losses from earlier in the week after cruising past Wall Street’s third-quarter sales and profit targets. Reddit reported that its revenue in the period soared 68% from a year ago, while its profit surged nearly 23% to $163 million. Its share rose 10.8% overnight.
A spat between Disney and Google didn’t appear to be taking a toll on either company’s shares yet. Streaming contract negotiations between the two companies broke down Thursday. Disney channels that vanished from Google’s pay TV platform include the Disney Channel, ABC, and ESPN, which could impact some college football fans on Saturday.
Disney shares dipped 0.8% overnight, while Google’s rose 1.5%.
U.S. and global markets had slumped on Thursday after some earnings reports from the technology sector failed to impress investors. Markets also appeared skeptical that President Donald Trump’s trade truce with China would put an end to tensions between the two countries.
Elsewhere, at midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 each dipped 0.2%, while the FTSE 100 in London shed 0.4%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index shed 1% to 26,020.29 and the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.8% to 3,954.79.
Data released Friday showed factory activity in China contracted in October for a seventh straight month and at the fastest pace in six months. The official NBS Manufacturing PMI fell to 49.0 from 49.8 in September.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was the outlier among major Asian markets, gaining 2.1% to 52,411.34, yet another record, after a report showed industrial production rose 2.2% month-on-month in September, beating market expectations and rebounding from a 1.5% drop the month before.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% to 4,107.50, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost earlier gains, shedding less than 0.1% to 8,881.90.
Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.2% while India’s BSE Sensex slipped 0.4%.
In energy markets early Friday, benchmark U.S. crude oil shed 14 cents to $60.43 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 17 cents to $64.20.
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