Thursday, March 28

Nasdaq futures jump after Alphabet, AMD results


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Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 1.5% on Wednesday, rising for the fourth straight session after a turbulent start to the year, as Google-parent Alphabet and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices’ shares surged following strong fourth-quarter results.

Alphabet Inc rose 10.4% in premarket trading after reporting record quarterly sales on Tuesday, and said it plans to undertake a 20-to-one stock split.

The stock split should make it more appealing to retail investors, said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst for Markets.com, adding that Alphabet earnings will underpin a return in confidence in beaten down technology names.

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“After all the tumult of January, solid earnings can be a catalyst for gains.”

Last month the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell as much as 19% from its all-time high in November as investors dumped highly valued growth stocks on prospects of faster-than-expected rate hikes.

Traders are betting on five rate hikes this year after hawkish comments from the US Federal Reserve last month.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc climbed 11.1% after it forecast 2022 revenue above expectations on Tuesday, following strong quarterly demand for its semiconductors, despite global supply snags.

The chipmaker’s strong outlook lifted shares of peers Nvidia Corp, Qualcomm Inc and Micron Technology Inc between 2.8% and 5.2%.

At 7:01 am ET, Dow e-minis were up 37 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 33.5 points, or 0.74%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 218 points, or 1.45%.

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Investors will be keeping an eye out for the ADP National Employment Report later in the day that is expected to show private payrolls added 207,000 jobs in January, after they jumped by 807,000 jobs in the previous month.

Megacaps Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc rose about 3% each ahead of their earnings this week.

Of the companies that have reported results so far during this earnings season, 78.8% of them have beaten analysts’ earnings estimates, compared with an average of 84% over the past four quarters, according to Refinitiv data.

PayPal Holdings Inc slumped 16.8% after forecasting first-quarter revenue and profit well below expectations, as it prepares to take a hit from eBay Inc’s ongoing move to ditch its payments services.

Starbucks Corp fell 2.6% as the coffee chain lowered its estimates for profits this year and said it will raise menu prices in 2022 and reduce some spending to offset soaring costs for labor and goods. (Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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financialpost.com