LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - US stock futures turned north on Friday, with investors buoyed by Amazon's surprise profit report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is expected to open approximately 19 points higher, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are set to begin the final session of the week three and 12 points higher respectively.

Amazon surges

On Thursday, the Dow Jones turned negative for the year in the wake of disappointing earnings from Caterpillar and American Express, which joined IBM and Apple in the list of companies whose results were met by a lukewarm reception.

"The strong dollar has been mentioned a lot in the earnings statements of the big US corporates," said CMC Markets' analyst Jasper Lawler.

"But there are also clearly some issues over domestic demand looking at the poor retail sales numbers as well as demand overseas from China with its manufacturing sector seen slumping again in July."

In company news, Amazon surged 18.3% in pre-market trading, after the e-commerce giant reported an unexpected profit and a sharp hike in sales for the second quarter late on Thursday.

Starbucks rose 4.31% ahead of the bell, after the coffee retailer reported an 18% jump in quarterly revenue, exceeding analysts' expectations.

On Friday, the earnings season slows down slightly with Biogen, American Airlines and State Street amongst those reporting.

Health benefit group Anthem advanced 2.43% after announcing it had agreed a deal to purchase sector peer Cigna in a $54.2bn cash and stock deal.

Friday data

The final session of the week sees two economic indicators on tap, with a July preliminary reading on US manufacturing activity due at 1445 BST, followed by a report on June new-home sales, which is released at 1500 BST.

Elsewhere, Asian markets fell, following Wall Street's lead overnight, with losses across the region at the close of week's trading, while European stocks were broadly flat.

The dollar was broadly flat against the yen, but rose 0.13% and 0.31% against the pound and the euro respectively, while gold futures slumped 1.50% to $1,077.70.

Oil prices were mixed, with West Texas Intermediate climbing 0.47% to $48.68 a barrel, while Brent shed 0.18% to $55.17 a barrel.

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