US pre-open: Futures mixed as Q4 earnings season kicks off
Wall Street futures were pointing to a mixed open ahead of the bell on Friday as market participants prepped themselves for the beginning of the fourth-quarter earnings season.
As of 1210 GMT, Dow Jones and S&P 500 futures were up 0.21% and 0.06%, respectively, while Nasdaq-100 futures had the index opening 0.14% weaker.
The Dow Jones closed 176.70 points in the red on Thursday, with big tech names on the slide as investors digested December's producer price index and this week's jobless claims figures.
Friday's primary focus, however, will be the beginning of fourth-quarter earnings season, with banking giants BlackRock, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo all scheduled to report earnings before the open.
BlackRock revealed that quarterly profits had risen 2.5% as assets grew to $10.0trn and boosted fee income throughout the period, while JP Morgan Chase posted a fall in fourth-quarter earnings as a softer performance in its trading unit somewhat offset a boom in its investment banking division.
The Nasdaq remained under pressure as tech stocks weighed on the index amid a continued rotation out of growth stocks and into value names, with Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Netflix and Alphabet all trading lower in the previous session.
On the macro front, December retail sales data will be published at 1430 GMT, while last month's industrial production figures will follow at 1515 GMT, and a preliminary reading of January's consumer sentiment index and November business inventories numbers will both follow at 1600 GMT.