U.S. stocks are seen opening in a mixed fashion Tuesday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq outperforming following the positive quarterly earnings from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
At 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT), the Dow futures contract was down 20 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures traded 6 points, or 0.1% higher, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 125 points, or 1%.
The main indices closed sharply lower Tuesday, weighed down by new worries about the banking sector after First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC) said first-quarter deposits fell by $100 billion last month, as people moved money out of the bank during the turmoil in March.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 350 points, or 1%, while the broad-based S&P 500 dropped 1.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite ended down 2%.
However, the mood picked up after the close when tech giants Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet reported solid first-quarter earnings, underlining the resilience of the core businesses at both companies.
Facebook-owner Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) picks up the baton Wednesday, also reporting its numbers after the close of U.S. trading.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has already unveiled rounds of sweeping job cuts and cost reductions in recent months, and investors will be keen to see just how much these belt-tightening measures are impacting the firm’s overall performance as well the company’s plans for artificial intelligence.
Other big corporate names set to report today include planemaker Boeing (NYSE:BA), hotel chain Hilton Worldwide (NYSE:HLT), Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE), biotech Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO), and cloud software firm ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW).
The economic data slate centers Wednesday around the release of U.S. durable goods orders for March, which are expected to rise 0.7% on the month, a significant improvement from the 1.0% drop the prior month.
The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by another 25 basis points next week, but future moves are likely to be data-dependent. This means the policymakers will be watching these numbers, along with first-quarter U.S. GDP data, due Thursday, and Friday’s core PCE price index very carefully.
Oil prices stabilized Wednesday after the previous session’s sharp losses, helped by falling U.S. fuel inventories pointing to resilient demand in the world’s largest oil consumer.
Data from the American Petroleum Institute, released late Tuesday, showed that U.S. crude inventories fell by just over 6 million barrels last week, more than the expected 1.7 million barrels, while gasoline inventories fell 1.9 million barrels.
The official numbers, from the Energy Information Administration, are due later in the session.
By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.3% higher at $77.26 a barrel, while the Brent contract edged lower to $80.58.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.2% to $2,009.00/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.8% higher at 1.1057.
