© Reuters.
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening lower Friday, handing back some of the previous session’s hefty gains, as investors digest earnings from Amazon and Intel ahead of the release of key inflation data.
At 06:45 ET (10:45 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 130 points, or 0.4%, S&P 500 Futures traded 16 points, or 0.4%, lower and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 40 points, or 0.3%.
The main indices closed sharply higher Thursday, with strong earnings reports from a slew of companies, led by Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), helping the tech stocks outperform.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed over 500 points, or 1.6%, higher, while the broad-based S&P 500 gained 2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite 2.4%.
However, this positive sentiment dissipated after the close after the tech giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) warned of a slowdown at its crucial cloud-computing division even after first-quarter numbers showed that revenue at Amazon Web Services - a major driver of the group's overall profit - had grown by more than expected.
Amazon stock fell 1% premarket.
Additionally, Snap (NYSE:SNAP) stock slumped 18% premarket after quarterly revenues at the company behind photo-messaging app Snapchat missed estimates, while Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) stock fell 12% after the image-sharing social media site suffered a slump in ad spending.
On the flip side, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) stock rose 5% premarket after the semiconductor company pointed to better times ahead, saying slumping gross margins will improve in the second half of the year.
The earnings deluge continues Friday, including results from oil majors Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) as well as consumer product company Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL).
Of the 235 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, about 79% have reported positive surprises, according to FactSet data.
Friday’s key economic release is the core personal consumption expenditure index, which excludes volatile items like food and energy, and is widely seen as the Federal Reserve’s favorite gauge of inflation.
It is predicted to have increased by 0.3% in March, in line with the prior month. On a year-on-year basis, the reading is forecast to slow to 4.5% from 4.6% in February.
The Federal Reserve is widely tipped to increase rates by another 25 basis points next week, but a great deal of uncertainty exists about the future path of its monetary policy.
Oil prices edged higher Friday, but look set to post a second weekly drop as tepid economic growth in the Eurozone as well as disappointing U.S. first-quarter GDP added to fears of a global slowdown.
By 06:45 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.3% higher at $75.01 a barrel, while the Brent contract climbed 0.5% to $78.61.
Both benchmarks are set to decline over 3% this week, taking their drops close to 10% over the past two weeks.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,991.65/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% lower at 1.0989.
