A surge in Tesla shares was set to lift U.S. equity indexes at the open on Thursday, with airline stocks providing added boost after United Airlines and American Airlines forecast a return to profitability in the current quarter.
The world’s most valuable automaker jumped 9.4% in premarket trading after its results beat Wall Street expectations as higher prices helped it overcome supply-chain chaos and rising costs.
Meanwhile, United Airlines Holdings Inc and American Airlines Group Inc rose 8.7% and 11.3%, respectively, after their upbeat outlook on bookings due to booming travel demand.
Shares of peers Southwest Airlines Co, JetBlue Airways Corp and Delta Air Lines Inc gained between 3.1% and 4.8%.
U.S. stocks fell sharply on Wednesday after dismal results from Netflix Inc triggered a selloff in technology and growth stocks.
“Earnings have been a mixed big so far, obviously you saw the disappointment with Netflix. We’re probably going to go back and forth on a day-to-day basis,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“People are still looking at the bond market and the Fed policy over the longer term, it’s not just earnings.”
Investors will focus on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech later in the day for clues on monetary policy tightening plans, with many expecting a 50 basis points rate hike next month to contain soaring inflation.
Markets have been jittery about the prospect of rising interest rates this year and their impact on rate-sensitive growth stocks.
Manufacturing activity in the Mid-Atlantic region fell short of estimates, while input costs shot to their highest since 1979, a regional Federal Reserve survey showed on Thursday.
Another set showed, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell moderately last week, suggesting that April was another month of strong job growth.
At 09:01 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 248 points, or 0.71%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 42 points, or 0.94%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 183 points, or 1.31%.
AT&T Inc rose 1.4% after posting a rise in core wireless revenue for the first quarter, as the telecom giant benefited from the aggressive expansion of its fiber internet and 5G services.
Overall, analysts expect S&P 500 earnings growth of 6.5% in the first quarter as of Wednesday, compared with the 32.1% rise in the previous quarter, according to Refinitiv data.
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