US pre-open: Stocks mixed as earnings remain firmly in focus

Wall Street futures were pointing to a mostly positive open ahead of the bell on Wednesday as earnings remained firmly in focus.

As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones futures were up 0.10%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.04% and 0.79% firmer, respectively.

The Dow closed 344.57 points lower on Tuesday as market participants digested a number of earnings reports.

Stock futures were in the green prior to the open on Wednesday as traders zeroed in on tech earnings after Microsoft beat Wall Street expectations on both the top and bottom lines in its recently wrapped-up trading quarter thanks to a marked increase in revenues from its intelligent cloud business segment, and Google parent company Alphabet reported better-than-anticipated revenues and maiden profits from its cloud unit.

As far as Wednesday goes, Boeing, Hilton Worldwide, and Spirit Airlines will report earnings before the opening bell, while Facebook owner Meta Platforms, eBay, and Mattel will publish their latest quarterly numbers after the close of trading.

On the macro front, US mortgage applications rose 3.7% in the week ended 21 April, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, bouncing back from an 8.8% drop in the previous week as applications to purchase a home grew 4.6%, while applications to refinance a home loan increased 1.7%

Still to come, March durable goods orders and advance reading of last month's goods trade balance will be published at 1330 BST.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com