Futures rise as Fed stands pat on rates

[July 27, 2017]  By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were higher on Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged and ahead of a raft of earnings reports, led by Amazon and Intel.

* The central bank, in a statement following a two-day policy meeting, indicated the economy was growing moderately and job gains had been solid. However, it noted that both overall inflation and a measure of underlying price gains had declined and said it would "carefully monitor" price trends.

* The statement was perceived as dovish by investors, with rate futures pricing in a 38 percent chance of an interest rate hike by December, compared with a little over 50 percent before the meeting.

* Wall Street closed at record highs on Wednesday, propelled by strong quarterly earnings.

* With about one-third of the S&P 500 companies having reported results, earnings are now expected to have climbed 9.9 percent in the second quarter, up from a projection of an 8 percent rise at the start of the month, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

* With equity markets at record levels, investors have been counting on strong earnings to justify the relatively expensive valuations for stocks.

* Online giant Amazon, Intel , Starbucks, Mattel are among the major companies to report results after the closing bell.

* Shares of Facebook jumped 5.91 percent in premarket trading after the social network's results beat Wall Street estimates.

* Twitter was down 8.26 percent after the company's quarterly results showed it failed to add users on a monthly basis in the second quarter, compared with the first quarter.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

* Digital payments company PayPal Holdings rose 3.15 percent after raising forecast.

* Comcast was up 1.91 percent as its quarterly results topped expectations.

* Economic data expected later in the day includes weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT). Also, data from the U.S. Commerce Department is likely to show that durable goods orders rose 3.0 percent in June after it fell 0.8 percent in May.

* Oil prices held just below eight-week highs, supported by a steeper-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories that boosted expectations of a shift to a more balanced market. [O/R]

Futures snapshot at 7:07 a.m. ET:

* Dow e-minis were up 33 points, or 0.15 percent, with 18,885 contracts changing hands.

* S&P 500 e-minis were up 5 points, or 0.2 percent, with 127,405 contracts traded.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 31 points, or 0.52 percent, on volume of 22,918 contracts.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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