Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on April 26, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
U.S. stock futures ticked higher on Wednesday night.
Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.5%, while S&P 500 futures added 0.2%. Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 20 points, or 0.06%.
Meta shares leapt in after-hours trading as the company reported quarterly revenue that beat analysts’ expectations. The company issued stronger-than expected guidance for the current period.
During regular trading Wednesday, the Dow shed 228.96 points, or 0.68%. The S&P 500 slid 0.38%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.47%.
In Wednesday’s session, Microsoft shares jumped more than 7%, buoyed by an earnings beat posted late Tuesday. Meanwhile, First Republic shares tumbled almost 30%, as investors became concerned over the regional bank’s health.
Liz Young, head of investment at SoFi, warns investors that despite the majority of S&P 500 companies reporting earnings higher than expectations, the worst is not yet behind the market.
“We’ve seen expectations get revised downward about 15%,” she said. “So the fact that companies are beating those lowered expectations, although probably a good thing for sentiment in the moment, because markets don’t like to hear about misses. We’re beating pretty unimpressive numbers.”
Recent worries around First Republic’s health spurred fears of a broad fallout similar to what happened in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. Young says that a repeat of that isn’t likely.
“I don’t think that this is a similar situation where we would expect broad markets to suddenly sell off if there’s a headline that [says] First Republic was taken into receivership like SVB was or something like that,” she said.
Thursday will be action packed for earnings, with Eli Lilly, Merck, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines posting results before the bell. Comcast – which owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC – is also expected to report in the morning.
Tech giants Amazon and Intel will share their quarterly results after the closing bell Thursday.
Key economic data releases include the initial reading of U.S. gross domestic product for the first quarter, slated for 8:30 a.m. Weekly jobless claims are due at the same time. Other major data points include pending home sales for March and the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index reading.
