By Ankika Biswas and Johann M Cherian
(Reuters) -Nasdaq futures climbed 1% on Friday as investors cheered strong quarterly reports from Meta Platforms and Amazon.com and keenly awaited a crucial jobs print at the end of a week marked by major tech earnings and a U.S. policy decision.
Meta surged 16.9% in premarket trading on issuing its first dividend days ahead of Facebook’s 20th anniversary, along with a revenue and profit beat on robust advertising sales in the holiday shopping period.
Other social media firms Snap and Pinterest rose 6.2% and 4.8%, respectively.
Amazon.com jumped 6.4% following a fourth-quarter revenue beat as new generative AI features in cloud and ecommerce businesses spurred robust growth during the critical holiday period.
“While the scorecard for the Magnificent Seven in the current earnings season to date is mixed, Amazon and Meta certainly produced stand-out quarterly updates,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
“It feels a healthier situation to have the markets driven by strong earnings and corporate success rather than ongoing guesswork about when central banks are going to cut rates.”
On the flip side, Apple lost 2.6% after forecasting a drop in iPhone sales and targeting overall revenue $6 billion below expectations, as its China business took a hit.
Earnings from the tech trio, part of the group of megacap stocks popularly called the “Magnificent 7”, likely offset some concerns over their rich valuations and outsized weighting in the S&P 500, after Alphabet and Microsoft’s disappointing AI cost projections and Tesla’s growth warning.
Nvidia, another member of the group of top-tier stocks, experienced a record-breaking surge in market value in January, driven by heightened artificial intelligence optimism, positive analyst projections, and announcement of expanded AI offerings.
The much-anticipated non-farms payroll report for January, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, will shed further light on the strength of the U.S. labor market following a series of mixed jobs data throughout the week.
In the previous session, Wall Street rebounded from a sell-off on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve quashed lingering bets that interest-rate cuts could begin as early as March.
At 7:07 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 22 points, or 0.06%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 28.25 points, or 0.57%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 170.75 points, or 0.98%.
Further on the earnings front, oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron added 0.7% and 1.4% respectively, after posting upbeat quarterly profits.
Cigna rose 5.1% as the health insurer raised its annual profit forecast after lower-than-expected medical costs and strong demand in its pharmacy benefit management unit helped it beat fourth-quarter profit estimates.
Bristol Myers Squibb posted upbeat results for the fourth quarter, sending the drugmaker’s shares up 2.8%.
Chipmaker Microchip Technology dropped 3.3% after forecasting fourth-quarter net sales below estimates, while footwear maker Skechers U.S.A lost 10% after a downbeat 2024 forecast.
New York Community Bank gained some lost ground, rising 0.9% after sliding nearly 45% over the past two day, jolting concerns over the state of U.S. regional banks after ruptures last year.
(Reporting by Ankika Biswas and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)