Futures bounce after steep selloff; IBM gains on strong results

[July 20, 2021]  By Devik Jain

(Reuters) - Futures tracking Wall Street's main indexes rose on Tuesday, as economically sensitive stocks rebounded following a sharp selloff in the previous session, while shares of IBM jumped after posting strong second-quarter results.

Shares of International Business Machines Corp gained 4.0% in premarket trading as brokerages raised their price targets on the stock following strong quarterly growth in the company's cloud and consulting businesses.

Focus is now on earnings reports from companies including Netflix Inc, Philip Morris and Chipotle Mexican Grill later in the day.

The second-quarter reporting season is underway, with 41 of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 90% have beaten consensus estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Analysts now see year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth of 72% for the April to June period, per Refinitiv.

Wall Street's main indexes ended sharply lower on Monday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones index logging its worst day in nearly nine months as a surge in Delta variant infections sparked a broad sell-off on fears about renewed COVID-19 shutdowns and a protracted economic recovery.

Energy stocks Chevron Corp, Schlumberger NV, Occidental Petroleum Corp, ONEOK Inc, Phillips 66 and Halliburton Co rose between 0.8% and 2.7%, as oil prices edged higher after the previous session's 7% slide. [O/R]

Rate-sensitive lenders Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley were up between 0.7% and 1.0%. [US/]

At 6:35 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 203 points, or 0.6%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 22.25 points, or 0.52%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 75.5 points, or 0.52%.

Shares of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms Coinbase Global, Riot Blockchain, Marathon Patent Group and MicroStrategy Inc fall between 1.4% and 2.8% as bitcoin slipped below $30,000.

Halliburton Co added 2% after it posted a second-straight quarterly profit, as a rebound in crude prices from pandemic-lows buoyed demand for oilfield services.

(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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