(Reuters) -U.S. stocks were set to rise at open on Tuesday as some growth and chip stocks gained, while investors digested a raft of quarterly earnings updates, ahead of reports from Big Tech later in the week.
Some megacap growth stocks, including Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com (O:AMZN), edged up between 0.5% and 1.3% in premarket trading.
The tech majors are scheduled to report their quarterly numbers this week, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) kicking off the cycle after markets close on Tuesday.
Early gains in some chip stocks also offered support to equities, with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) up between 0.7% and 2.0%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was an outlier, down 0.2%, as market data showed its smartphone shipments tumbled 19% in China in the first quarter.
On the earnings front, General Motors (NYSE:GM) advanced 4.9% after the automaker posted quarterly results above Wall Street targets and raised its annual forecast.
Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) gained 8% after the Swedish music streaming company beat estimates for premium subscribers.
GE Aerospace rose 4.3% after the aerospace giant raised its full-year profit forecast.
Danaher (NYSE:DHR) jumped 7.6% after the life sciences firm beat quarterly profit and sales expectations.
On the flipside, JetBlue plunged 10.8% as the low-cost airline trimmed its annual revenue forecast after reporting lukewarm first-quarter revenue.
“Overall, people are happy with how (earnings) have gone because mostly they’re surprised that things aren’t worse,” said Will McDonough, chairman and CEO of Corestone Capital.
Earnings are estimated to grow by 6% in the first quarter, as per latest estimates from LSEG.
U.S. equities sold off sharply last week amid heightened tensions in the Middle East and as traders re-evaluated their rate-cut expectations from the Federal Reserve.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index reading for March, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, is due on Friday and will help ascertain the central bank’s monetary policy trajectory.
Money markets are now pricing in just about 38 basis points of interest-rate cuts, down from about 150 bps seen at the start of the year, according to LSEG data.
On the data front, investors will await the S&P Global Composite Flash PMI data for April, due shortly after the opening bell.
At 8:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 81 points, or 0.21%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 13.75 points, or 0.27%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 48.5 points, or 0.28%.
Among other stocks, Cadence Design (NASDAQ:CDNS) Systems lost 6.4% in premarket trading after the chip design software maker forecast second-quarter revenue below analysts’ estimates.
Nucor Corp (NYSE:NUE) shed 6.9% after the steelmaker missed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter earnings.
Roblox added 4.2% after J.P. Morgan upgraded the gaming platform to “overweight” from “neutral” on significant monetization opportunity.
Hibbett jumped 18.8% after JD (NASDAQ:JD) Sports Fashion proposed to buy the athletic fashion retailer for about $1.08 billion.
Source: Economy - investing.com
