U.S. stocks looked set to rise on Thursday as the market tried to make sense of three tech giants’ quarterly reports and wondered whether the latest Federal Reserve meeting gave any clues as to where interest rates are headed.
NBCUniversal parent Comcast and parcel deliverer UPS are among the names set to report earnings early Thursday, while iPhone maker Apple—the world’s largest company by total market capitalization—is due to file its quarterly report after the closing bell.
Traders would be forgiven for thinking there had already been enough developments in what’s been a wild week for stocks. The rapid rise of Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek triggered a brutal tech selloff on Monday. The Fed managed to stick to the script by holding rates at their current level, although U.S. President Donald Trump’s rebuke of Chair Jerome Powell could be a source of further uncertainty.
For now, stocks looked headed for solid gains. Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 182 points, or 0.4%. S&P 500 futures were up 0.5% and futures tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.7%, despite the mixed bag of Big Tech results.
Bond yields retreated, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note down 3 basis points to 4.516%. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against 16 other currencies, edged down 0.1%.