US pre-open: Futures little changed as Q4 earnings take centre stage
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Thursday 06 Feb 2025
(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were little changed ahead of the bell on Thursday as corporate earnings took centre stage.
As of 1230 GMT, Dow Jones and S&P 500 futures were both up 0.06%, while Nasdaq-100 futures had the index opening 0.17% lower.
The Dow closed 317.24 points higher on Wednesday, extending modest gains recorded in the previous session.
Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "The recovery has come as the shock of President Trump's tariff announcements has moderated. There was relief after the threat of 25% tariffs on US imports from Mexico and Canada were postponed for a month as both countries promised to beef up security at their respective borders with the US. Mr Trump has accused both countries of not doing enough to prevent the flow of illegal migrants and illegal narcotics into the US. Additional tariffs on China came into force on Tuesday. But the 10% imposition is significantly below the 60% initially threatened. China has retaliated with its own trade restrictions which are scheduled to kick in next week. This provides a narrow window for some accommodation to be reached as Presidents Trump and Xi are expected to talk before the deadline.
"Away from tariff-talk, the fourth quarter earnings season continues to pick up pace. This has been broadly supportive for equities, although this week saw some notable disappointments. Yesterday, Alphabet and AMD both fell sharply, the former due to disappointing cloud revenue and large capital expenditures, the latter on poor data centre sales. Amazon updates after tonight's close. Investors will be paying close attention to cloud revenues, following disappointments from Microsoft and Alphabet in this sector. Then there's a long wait until the end of the month when NVIDIA reports to round off the 'Magnificent Seven'."
Q4 earnings from some of the nation's biggest semiconductor firms were in focus early on Thursday, with Qualcomm and Arm both heading south on the back of their latest quarterly figures.
Ford shares also traded lower after the automotive giant warned of a difficult year ahead in FY25, while Honeywell lost ground after issuing FY guidance that fell short of analysts' expectations.
Still to come, Eli Lilly, Yum Brands and Amazon were all slated to report earnings on Thursday.
On the macro front, weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department will be out at 1330 GMT, as will a preliminary reading of Q4 non-farm productivity, while December consumer credit change figures will be published at 2000 GMT.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com
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