Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
NYSE
Nasdaq 100 futures advanced Thursday night as traders analyzed major earnings reports in the runup to the all-important jobs report.
Futures tied to the tech-focused index added 0.35%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed 47 points or 0.11%. S&P 500 futures ticked up 0.2%.
Amazon rallied more than 5% as strength in the cloud and advertising businesses propelled the ecommerce giant above Wall Street’s earnings expectations. Intel soared more than 7% after exceeding analysts’ forecasts for revenue and offering strong guidance.
Those moves come after a downbeat session on Thursday, which saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite dragged down by post-earnings slumps in Microsoft and Meta Platforms. Both of the indexes notched their worst sessions since early September.
The Dow, meanwhile, tumbled more than 300 points. The blue-chip average was led lower by Microsoft, Intel and Amazon as the reports spooked investors on big tech.
“It’s mostly driven by tech, obviously” said Jay Hatfield, CIO of Infrastructure Capital Management, of Thursday’s declines. “I would also say that people are probably taking risk off ahead of the election.”
Thursday also marked the end of a losing trading month, a negative mark amid a strong year. The Dow led the major indexes down with a slide of 1.3%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq shed 1% and 0.5%, respectively.
Investors are watching Friday for the closely followed employment data due in the morning. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect nonfarm payrolls to by 100,000 jobs in October, which would mark the smallest increase in nearly four years. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is slated to hold steady at 4.1%.
On the earnings front, traders will monitor Friday reports from Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Friday will mark the end of the busiest earnings week of the season, which has brought results from nearly one-third of S&P 500-listed companies.
