Futures rise as better earnings ease nerves

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Thursday, as solid results from Microsoft, Lam Research and Tesla lifted sentiment following lackluster reports from big bellwether companies in the previous session.

Third-quarter earnings reports are center stage with investors trying to gauge the fallout from a prolonged U.S.-China trade war, which has already shown up in the domestic economy.

But the narrative so far has been fairly upbeat, with only a small crop of companies including industrial giant Caterpillar (NYSE:), toy-maker Hasbro Inc (NASDAQ:), and chipmaker Texas Instruments (O:) blaming the tariff moves for denting results.

Tech giant Microsoft Corp (O:) gained 1% premarket as its forecast for cloud computing services surpassed analysts’ expectations. Tesla Inc (O:) surged 18.2% after a surprise quarterly profit.

Lam Research Corp (O:) jumped 7% after the chip gear maker forecast strong results for the December quarter.

Chip-related stocks including Microchip Technology (O:), Micron (O:) and Nvidia (O:) also looked set to recover from a selloff in the previous session, sparked by a revenue warning from industry proxy Texas Instruments.

Of the 124 S&P 500 companies that reported results up to Wednesday, more than 82% topped earnings estimates, according to Refinitiv data. But analysts are still forecasting the first earnings contraction since 2016.

Comcast Corp (O:) added 3.4%, while Inc (N:) gained 3% after both companies exceeded profit estimates.

Among the few weak results for the day, Post-it notes maker 3M Co (N:) fell 2.7% after cutting its full-year profit forecast and missing third-quarter revenue estimates.

Twitter Inc (N:) slid nearly 20% after the social media platform posted worse-than-expected third quarter results.

At 7:27 a.m. ET, were up 31 points, or 0.12%. S&P 500 e-minis rose 5.25 points, or 0.17% and were up 43.5 points, or 0.55%.

In a relatively quiet week regarding new twists in the U.S.-China trade rhetoric, focus has shifted to fresh domestic economic data.

PMI surveys for the manufacturing and services sectors, due 9:45 a.m. ET, will offer further clarity on the health of the U.S. economy after a mixed bag of business sentiment indicators from major economies including Japan and the euro zone.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.