Market Snapshot: Stock futures turn mixed as jobs data looms. Tech points higher after blowout Amazon and Snap results

Daily Trade

Wall Street was poised for a rebound on Friday ahead of key employment data, with tech futures in particularly climbing after well-received results from Amazon.com Inc., Snap Inc. and Pinterest Inc.

That higher start comes a day after weak earnings and a warning from Meta Platforms sent those shares tumbling and dragged the broader market lower.

How are stock-index futures trading?

On Thursday, the Dow industrials
DJIA,
-1.45%

slumped 518.17 points, or 1.5%, to end at 35,111.16, the S&P 500
SPX,
-2.44%

fell 2.4% to close at 4,477.44 and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-3.74%

tumbled 3.7% to 13,878.82.

What’s driving the markets?

Nonfarm payrolls for January will swing into focus for Friday. “The consensus is for just 150,000 jobs to have been added, following a disappointing 199,000 the previous month, which would confirm the status of near full employment in the U.S. and would also serve as a reminder that interest-rate rises are imminent,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, in a note to clients.

“Of additional interest this month will be the wage growth number, where job shortages in some sectors may well be driving wage inflation, itself underlining the Federal Reserve’s hardening stance,” said Hunter. The data will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

Stock futures rose after Amazon’s 
AMZN,
-7.81%

 results blew out expectations late Thursday, though $11.8 billion of the $14.3 billion fourth-quarter profit it reported was from an investment in Rivian Automotive
RIVN,
-6.16%
,
which went public in the quarter. The company also raised the cost of a Prime subscription to $139 a year from $119 a year. Shares jumped more than 14% in late trade.

Read: Amazon Prime is raising its price: Here’s how much it has gone up over the years

That, along with a 59% surge in shares of Snapchat parent Snap
SNAP,
-23.60%
,
which reported its first-ever profit late Thursday, and positive results from Pinterest, were also lifting the mood.

Stocks broke a four-session string of wins on Thursday after Facebook parent Meta
FB,
-26.39%

missed sales and growth estimates, amid warnings of inflation and rising competition to the next quarter. Shares slumped a record 29.4% and $232 billion fell off the company’s market value, the largest single-day decline on record for any U.S. company, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Read: Facebook wasn’t Thursday’s only big loser — these 16 other Nasdaq-100 stocks dropped at least 5%

“Against a backdrop of probable rises in interest rates which in itself is traditionally less positive for high growth stocks, much store had been placed on the importance of strong corporate earnings in the fourth quarter in order to steady the investment ship,” said Hunter.

“While there has been generally good progress, there have been a handful of high-profile companies who have either disappointed through the numbers themselves or, equally importantly, through their outlook and guidance comments,” he said.

Which companies are in focus?
How are other assets faring?
  • The yield on the 10-year Treasury note 
    TMUBMUSD10Y,
    1.817%

    was flat at 1.826%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.

  • The ICE U.S. Dollar Index 
    DXY,
    -0.14%
    ,
     a measure of the currency against a basket of six rivals, was down less than 0.1%.

  • West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery 
    CLH22,
    +1.53%

    rose $1.38, or 1.2%, to $91.49 a barrel. Gold’s
    GCJ22,
    +0.55%

    April futures contract rose $5.20, or 0.3%, to $1,809.20 an ounce.

  • Bitcoin BTCUSD was up 2.5% to $36,960.

  • In European equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 
    SXXP,
    -0.68%

    slipped 0.3%, while London’s FTSE 100 UKX
    UKX,
    +0.38%

    rose 0.4%.

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