LDN - Business

Futures rise as investors assess big bank earnings

[January 12, 2018] By Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) - U.S. stock futures rose and pointed to a positive open for Wall Street on Friday as investors digested fourth-quarter earnings reports from big U.S. lenders.

JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> rose 1 percent in choppy premarket trading after the biggest U.S. bank by assets reported profit that beat estimates, benefiting from higher interest rates and loan growth.

Regional lender PNC Financial Services' <PNC.N> quarterly profit doubled, driven by a $911 million one-time benefit related to the new tax law. Its shares rose more than 1 percent.

While tax-related costs are expected to weigh on banks' earnings, they are expected to benefit in the long run from lower tax burden.

Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to increase on an average by 11.8 percent in the quarter with profit for financial services companies growing as much, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

At 6:58 a.m. ET (1158 GMT), Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were up 100 points, or 0.39 percent, with 24,748 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis <ESc1> were up 5.5 points, or 0.2 percent, with 108,891 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQc1> were up 7 points, or 0.1 percent, on volume of 24,422 contracts.

Shares of BlackRock Inc <BLK.N> jumped 2.2 percent in thin volumes after the world's largest asset manager reported a better-than-expected profit as its ETF business saw more inflows in the quarter.

Wells Fargo & Co <WFC.N> was down 0.8 percent ahead of its quarterly report.

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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The dollar fell to its lowest in more than four months against a basket of currencies <.DXY> after euro rose on bets that the European Central Bank was set to wind down its stimulus and on reports Germany had reached a deal that should lead to the formation of a coalition government. [USD/]

Oil prices eased from three-year highs on Friday, after helping drive the major stock indexes to close at record highs.

One of the Fed's most influential members, New York Fed Chief William Dudley said on Thursday the tax cuts could provide a short-term boost but risk overheating the economy.

Facebook <FB.O> slipped more than 4 percent and was the most traded stock premarket after the company started changing the way it filters posts and videos on News Feed.

Advanced Micro Devices <AMD.O> fell 2.8 percent after the company said its microprocessors are prone to both variants of the Spectre security flaw, days after saying its risk for one of them was "near zero".

December readings on U.S. consumer prices and retail sales are due at 8:30 a.m. ET.

The consumer price index is expected to show inflation increased 0.2 percent after rising 0.4 percent in the month before, and retail sales is likely to have increased 0.4 percent.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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