Wall Street on course for bounce after tech selloff

[October 25, 2018]   By Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq set to rebound from its worst day since 2011, helped by strong quarterly results reports from Comcast, Microsoft and electric carmaker Tesla.

Microsoft jumped 2.3 percent in premarket trading after topping consensus estimates for both revenue and profit, helped by strong demand for its Azure cloud computing and Office 365 software products.

Tesla surged 11 percent after the electric carmaker made good on billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk's promise it would yield a net profit in the quarter, encouraging hopes it will not have to raise more capital soon.

The results came as a relief to Wall Street, battered this week by a series of sluggish outlooks from manufacturers and chipmakers worried about the impact of tariffs and a trade war with China on profits and global growth.

Warnings on chip demand Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics helped push the Nasdaq into correction territory on Wednesday, while the Dow and S&P 500 erased all of their yearly gains, sparking a rout on global stock markets.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices plunged 20.2 percent after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue below estimates in its own results release after the bell on Wednesday.

That was countered by profit beats for Twitter, whose shares rose 13 percent, Ford and Visa.

DOUR OUTLOOK

The S&P 500, on a tear for almost a decade, has racked up only four daily gains so far in October as a range of worries, from rising borrowing costs and bond yields to Italy's budget and U.S. congressional elections weighed on sentiment.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Results from S&P 500 companies have pushed up third-quarter profit growth estimates to 22.4 percent from an earlier 21.6 percent, but the run of dour outlooks has pulled down fourth-quarter growth estimates to 19.5 percent from 20 percent, according to Refinitiv data.

Intel, Google-parent Alphabet and Amazon were all up more than 2 percent ahead of their own results releases, due after market on Thursday.

Apple and Facebook also rose more than 1.5 percent.

At 7:19 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 178 points, or 0.72 percent. S&P 500 e-minis were up 21.75 points, or 0.82 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 88 points, or 1.29 percent.

Economic data at 8.30 a.m. ET is expected to show overall orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft that are meant to last three years or more, have dropped 1 percent in September, from a 4.4 percent surge in the previous month.

(Reporting by Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru)

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