By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening higher Friday, ending a volatile week on a positive note on the back of raised hopes of a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine.
At 7 AM ET (1200 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 390 points, or 1.2%, S&P 500 Futures traded 55 points, or 1.3%, higher and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 220 points, or 1.6%.
These gains followed a Reuters report quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin as stating that there were certain "positive shifts" in talks with Ukraine, lifting hopes for a ceasefire in a war that is now in its third week.
The main Wall Street indices all closed lower Thursday after talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries failed to make progress, with the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average now down 1.3% on the week, potentially registering its fifth negative week in a row for the first time since May 2019.
The war in Ukraine has driven up the costs of oil and other commodities, prompting fears that the Federal Reserve will have to lift interest rates more rapidly than previously expected.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in February over last year, the largest annual increase in 40 years, data showed on Thursday, and this is before the sharp commodity price rises caused by Russia's war against Ukraine are factored in.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to lift interest rates by 25 basis points when it meets next week, the likely start of a series of interest rate hikes to curb inflation.
Goldman Sachs cut its full-year GDP growth forecast this year to 1.75% from 2.0%, with the influential investment bank warning the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year may be as much as 35%.
The data slate is quiet Friday, with only consumer sentiment data from the University of Michigan due. However, this will give investors an insight into how households are faring as rising price pressures erode spending power.
In corporate news, Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) reported a hefty fourth quarter net loss of $2.46 billion after the close Thursday, and the EV-maker halved its production target for this year amid supply chain issues.
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) forecast strong fourth quarter profit as the software firm expects its heavy cloud investments to pay off, while DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU) issued weak revenue guidance for the first quarter and fiscal year.
Additionally, Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), will be in the spotlight after regulators in the EU and U.K. opened antitrust probes into the pair over the pair’s 2018 advertising deal.
Oil prices traded higher Friday as the talks around lifting sanctions on Iran were paused, further delaying the possibility of crude exports from the Persian Gulf country entering the global market.
That said the market still looked set for the largest weekly drop since November 2021, amid uncertainty over global production levels.
By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 1.4% higher at $107.50 a barrel, heading for a weekly drop of around 8% after touching a high of $130.50, while the Brent contract rose 1.6% to $111.09, set for a weekly fall of about 7% after hitting a 14-year high of $139.13.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.9% to $1,982.65/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% higher at 1.1011.
