Wall Street was poised for a mixed start on Friday ahead of key employment data, with tech futures in particularly climbing after well-received results from Amazon.com Inc., Snap Inc. and Pinterest Inc.
That higher start comes a day after weak earnings and a warning from Meta Platforms sent those shares tumbling and dragged the broader market lower.
How are stock-index futures trading?
- S&P 500 futures ES00, +0.25% rose 0.2% to 4,479
- Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, -0.12% slipped 0.1% to 34,925
- Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, +0.84% rose 0.8% to 14,616
On Thursday, the Dow industrials DJIA, -1.45% slumped 518.17 points, or 1.5%, to end at 35,111.16, the S&P 500 SPX, -2.44% fell 2.4% to close at 4,477.44 and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -3.74% tumbled 3.7% to 13,878.82.
What’s driving the markets?
Nonfarm payrolls for January will swing into focus for Friday, in what could be the worst jobs report in more than a year.
“The consensus is for just 150,000 jobs to have been added, following a disappointing 199,000 the previous month, which would confirm the status of near full employment in the U.S. and would also serve as a reminder that interest-rate rises are imminent,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, in a note to clients.
“Of additional interest this month will be the wage growth number, where job shortages in some sectors may well be driving wage inflation, itself underlining the Federal Reserve’s hardening stance,” said Hunter. The data will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Stock futures pared some sharply higher gains earlier. Inspiring the bounce were Amazon’s AMZN, -7.81% blow-out results late Thursday, though $11.8 billion of the $14.3 billion fourth-quarter profit it reported was from an investment in Rivian Automotive RIVN, -6.16%, which went public in the quarter. The company also raised the cost of a Prime subscription to $139 a year from $119 a year. Shares jumped more than 14% in late trade.
Read: Amazon Prime is raising its price: Here’s how much it has gone up over the years
That, along with a 59% surge in shares of Snapchat parent Snap SNAP, -23.60%, which reported its first-ever profit late Thursday, and positive results from Pinterest, were also lifting the mood.
Stocks broke a four-session string of wins on Thursday after Facebook parent Meta FB, -26.39% missed sales and growth estimates, amid warnings of inflation and rising competition to the next quarter. Shares slumped a record 29.4% and $232 billion fell off the company’s market value, the largest single-day decline on record for any U.S. company, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Read: Facebook wasn’t Thursday’s only big loser — these 16 other Nasdaq-100 stocks dropped at least 5%
“Against a backdrop of probable rises in interest rates which in itself is traditionally less positive for high growth stocks, much store had been placed on the importance of strong corporate earnings in the fourth quarter in order to steady the investment ship,” said Hunter.
“While there has been generally good progress, there have been a handful of high-profile companies who have either disappointed through the numbers themselves or, equally importantly, through their outlook and guidance comments,” he said.
Which companies are in focus?
- Pinterest PINS, -10.32% reported its full-year profit and more than $2 billion in annual revenue and shares of the online-pinboard company climbed 21%.
- Bill.com Holdings shares BILL, -7.79% surged 29%, after the maker of financial software tools for small businesses topped expectations for its latest quarter and gave an upbeat forecast.
- Shares of GoPro GPRO, -6.84% rose 5%, after the action-camera maker topped earnings expectations, with plans to broaden camera offerings in the year ahead.
- Ford Motor Co. F, -3.59% swung to a quarterly profit, but along with sales, fell short of Wall Street expectations amid “persistent supply-chain disruptions.” Shares dropped 4%.
How are other assets faring?
- The yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.819% was flat at 1.826%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, -0.13%, a measure of the currency against a basket of six rivals, was down less than 0.1%.
- West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery CLH22, +1.47% rose $1.38, or 1.2%, to $91.49 a barrel. Gold’s GCJ22, +0.58% April futures contract rose $5.20, or 0.3%, to $1,809.20 an ounce.
- Bitcoin BTCUSD was up 2.5% to $36,960.
- In European equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, -0.70% slipped 0.3%, while London’s FTSE 100 UKX UKX, +0.34% rose 0.4%.
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