Wall Street futures gain as deadline for fresh stimulus looms

[October 20, 2020] By Medha Singh

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Tuesday on expectations that Washington lawmakers would be able to settle their differences for an economic stimulus bill to pass before the Nov. 3 presidential elections.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will talk again on Tuesday, after a 53-minute telephone conversation on Monday "continued to narrow their differences" about the coronavirus aid package, a Pelosi spokesman said on Twitter.

Uncertainty over the fiscal stimulus weighed on Wall Street's main indexes on Monday, with analysts expecting market turbulence to increase with only two weeks left until Election Day.

Meanwhile, third-quarter earnings season gathered momentum with companies including property and casualty insurer Travelers Cos Inc <TRV.N>, consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co <PG.N> and jet maker Lockheed Martin <LMT.N> scheduled to report results before the bell.

Of the 50 S&P 500 companies that have reported results, 86% have topped expectations for earnings, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Netflix Inc <NFLX.O> added 0.9% in premarket trading as investors awaited the stay-at-home winner's membership additions in the third quarter.

International Business Machines Corp <IBM.N> edged past estimates for quarterly revenue, bolstered by higher demand for its cloud services. IBM shares, however, fell 2.9% after the company stayed away from issuing a current-quarter forecast, citing economic uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At 06:17 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis <1YMcv1> rose 0.50% to 28,241 points and S&P 500 E-minis <EScv1> were up 0.58% to 3,442.5 points. Nasdaq 100 E-minis <NQcv1> gained 0.63% to 11,723 points.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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