LDN - Business

Stock futures rise as big deals, earnings hope dull tariff fears

[July 12, 2018] By Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures bounced back on Thursday, from a drop a day earlier on renewed fears of a Sino-U.S. trade war, as oil prices rose and a couple of big deals helped rekindle optimism as the earnings season kicks off.

Broadcom's <AVGO.O> shares fell 8.8 percent in premarket trading after the chipmaker's $18.9 billion deal to buy business software maker CA Inc caught investors and analysts by surprise. CA's shares jumped 18.6 percent.

Comcast <CMCSA.O> made a $34 billion bid for Sky <SKYB.L>, trumping an offer from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox <FOXA.O> 16 hours earlier and setting up a transatlantic battle for the European pay-TV group.

Markets were rattled on Wednesday after the United States threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China said Thursday the two countries have not been in touch about restarting negotiations and while it does not want a trade war, it would fight if necessary.

"While markets have typically reacted negatively to any escalation on trade, the overall impact has been relatively modest under the circumstances, which suggests investors are far from panic mode right now," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at online forex broker Oanda, said in a note.

The drop on Wall Street on Wednesday was not as steep as in late March and early April when the S&P 500 tumbled more than 2 percent on four occasions as trade rhetoric escalated.

Boeing <BA.N> and Caterpillar <CAT.N>, among the Dow's biggest drags on Wednesday and among the hardest hit by the recent trade dispute, were up about 1 percent.

Also helping sentiment was crude oil prices recouping some ground following sharp losses in the previous session. [O/R]

[to top of second column]

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., July 11, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

At 7:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were up 186 points, or 0.75 percent. S&P 500 e-minis <ESc1> were up 14.75 points, or 0.53 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQc1> were up 37 points, or 0.51 percent.

Delta Air Lines <DAL.N> rose 1.5 percent after the company's quarterly profit fell less than expected. Delta though slashed its full-year earnings forecast as fuel costs surged.

Overall, S&P 500 companies are expected to post second-quarter profit growth of around 21 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The earnings season kicks off in earnest on Friday, when big Wall Street banks JPMorgan Chase <JPM.N>, Wells Fargo <WFC.N> and Citigroup <C.N> report results.

On the macro front, a Labor Department report at 8:30 a.m. ET is expected to show the Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent in June, similar to its May reading. Jobless claims is expected to have slipped to a seasonally adjusted 225,000 last week, from 231,000 a week before.

(Reporting by Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

Back to top