S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures rose on Wednesday night following solid earnings reports from tech titans Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
S&P 500 futures jumped 0.7%, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 1%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 76 points, or about 0.2%.
“Magnificent Seven” titans Microsoft and Meta respectively rose about 8% and 12% on Wednesday night on the back of better-than-expected quarterly earnings. Software giant Microsoft said that annual revenue from its cloud computing service Azure exceeded $75 billion. Meta issued an upbeat third-quarter sales outlook, surpassing the Street’s estimates.
In regular trading Wednesday, the S&P 500 closed lower after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the U.S. central bank is still not ready to cut interest rates. The broad market index shed 0.12%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 171.71 points, or 0.38%. The Nasdaq Composite, on the other hand, notched a 0.15% gain.
While the Federal Reserve left its benchmark overnight policy rate steady at its July meeting, not all members agreed with the decision. Fed governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller dissented with the call to keep the key interest rate at a range of 4.25% to 4.50%. When asked about a potential policy change in September, Powell said that the Fed has “made no decisions.”
Ross Mayfield, investment analyst at Baird, said that Wednesday’s losses made sense given the market’s currently “stretched” valuations. The S&P 500’s decline marked its second day of losses following a streak of six record closes in a row.
“There’s a lot of good news priced in, so I think little things on the margin can have a bigger impact when you’ve had such a run, like slightly hawkish comments in the FOMC presser,” Mayfield said to CNBC. “Sentiment has shifted back to a pretty bullish tenor, and I think the market needs to consolidate and take a breather, and it’ll grab on to whatever it needs to as an excuse.”
On Thursday, traders will watch out for June’s personal consumption expenditures price index reading, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. Economists polled by Dow Jones see headline PCE rising 2.5% on a 12-month basis and 0.3% from the prior month. Weekly jobless claims are also due.
Comcast, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cigna, CVS Health, Shake Shack, AbbVie and Mastercard are among the companies set to report earnings before Thursday’s opening bell. Results from Apple and Amazon are on deck for the afternoon.
Microsoft joins exclusive $4 trillion market cap club, boosted by 8% after-hours gains
Shares of Microsoft jumped 8% in Wednesday’s extended trading hours, after the software giant posted better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results.
The after-hours gain lifted Microsoft’s market capitalization to about $4.1 trillion. If this rally continues on Thursday, Microsoft will officially join chipmaker Nvidia in the exclusive $4 trillion market cap club. Nvidia hit the benchmark level earlier this month.
Apple is third on the leaderboard, with a total market capitalization of around $3.2 trillion.
— Ari Levy, Jordan Novet, Lisa Kailai Han
Stocks making the biggest moves after the bell: Microsoft, Meta and more
These are the stocks moving the most in extended-hours trading:
Read the full list of stocks moving here.
— Lisa Kailai Han
S&P 500 futures, Nasdaq 100 futures rise
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures rose on Wednesday night, boosted by after-hours gains in shares of Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
Futures tied to the broad market benchmark rose 0.6%, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.9%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 23 points, or 0.05%.
— Lisa Kailai Han