U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday as better-than-feared quarterly reports from Big Tech companies Alphabet and Microsoft lifted investor sentiment, even as they failed to meet analysts’s consensus expectations, ahead of a key U.S. interest rate hike later in the day.
Microsoft Corp rose 3.8% in premarket trading on Wednesday after it forecast revenue would grow by double digits this fiscal year, driven by demand for cloud computing services.
Alphabet Inc added 3.5% as better-than-expected sales at Google search ads brought relief after social media firm Snap Inc’s warning last week raised fears of a sharp ad market slowdown. read more
“A positive reaction from the latest quarterly numbers has been incredibly hard-won given the negative market sentiment surrounding broader tech,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Shares of other high-growth stocks including Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc, and Apple Inc also got a boost ahead of their earnings this week.
MacDailyNews Take: The U.S. Fed would surprise the market with a 1-percentage-point increase as some 75% of analysts expect another 75 basis point interest rate hike. The Fed’s decision is due at 2:00pm EDT (1800 GMT).
Apple reports fiscal Q3 2022 earnings on Thursday, July 28th after market close. As usual, we’ll have the results for you as soon as they are available, right around 1:30pm PDT / 4:30pm EDT. The analysts’ consensus calls for Apple to post revenue of $82.81 billion and earnings per share of $1.16.
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Good news for investors! But for me this growth was surprising, since it was not predicted by anything. I run my own financial blog and in my experience, this should not have happened!