U.S. stock futures rose, suggesting indexes would climb at the end of a choppy week, as investors parsed another batch of earnings from major companies.
Futures for the S&P 500 edged up 0.4% Friday. The broad stocks gauge rose 1.7% Thursday, its biggest one-day advance since March, after better-than-expected earnings and labor market data helped ease concerns about the economic outlook.
Contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5% Friday. Futures for the technology-focused Nasdaq-100 ticked up 0.4%.
Ahead of the bell in New York, shares of Goldman Sachs Group rose 1.5%. The bank was due to report earnings before the stock market opened, following solid results from rivals earlier in the week.
In other corporate news, J.B. Hunt Transport Services reported a rise in third-quarter profits, lifting shares 3.8% premarket. Shares of Alcoa rose 6.6% after the metals producer posted higher third-quarter sales Thursday, boosted by higher aluminum prices.
Moderna rose 3.2% after experts advising the Food and Drug Administration voted late Thursday to recommend authorizing a booster shot of the firm’s Covid-19 vaccine. U.S.-listed shares of Virgin Galactic tumbled more than 18% after founder Richard Branson said the company was pushing back the launch of private-astronaut flights toward the end of next year.
After a rocky patch for stocks, a strong batch of earnings from healthcare companies and banks including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup has buoyed the market in recent days. Investors remain concerned that supply-chain blockages and a steep rise in energy prices will fuel inflation, which may prompt central banks to withdraw stimulus measures faster than expected.
Money managers will parse quarterly reports before the market opens. Of the 35 companies on the S&P 500 that had reported earnings through Thursday, 80% had beaten analysts’ forecasts, according to FactSet, slightly better than the three-quarters that did so each quarter in 2019, before the pandemic.
At 10 a.m., the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey will give new clues into the outlook for spending.
Energy markets extended a run-up Friday that has pushed oil and gas prices to multiyear highs and strained already snarled supply chains. Brent-crude futures, the benchmark in global oil markets, rose 1% to $84.85 a barrel, having earlier hit their highest intraday level in three years.
In the bond market, yields on 10-year Treasury notes rose to 1.545% Friday, from 1.519% Thursday. Yields rise when bond prices fall.
Friday’s uptick in yields was in line with upbeat moves in stocks and commodities, though correlations between different markets are in flux as investors debate the inflation outlook, according to Richard McGuire, head of rates strategy at Rabobank.
“We’ve seen an ebb and flow this week,” he said. Mr. McGuire expects the inflation burst to fade, as “high prices will sow the seed of their own downfall,” with consumers starting to spend less.
Overseas markets were broadly higher. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.4%, led by shares of energy producers and travel-and-leisure companies—all sensitive to the path of economic growth. Shares of airlines including Ryanair and Wizz Air rose after the U.K. government said travelers returning to England from most countries would be able to take quick-fire coronavirus tests starting later this month. Currently, rules require a more expensive test.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.5% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index edged up 0.4%.
Japan’s yen continued its slide. Traders have sold off the currency on concerns that high oil and gas prices will knock economic growth in Japan, a major energy importer. The yen fell 0.6% to trade at 114.33 per dollar, taking its losses for the week to 1.8%.
Turkey’s lira fell 0.4% to trade at 9.22 per dollar. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired three top central-bank officials this week, adding to pressure on the currency, which has tumbled almost 20% this year. The central bank cut its key interest rate in September, even as the annual pace of inflation hit almost 20%, raising concerns among investors that prices will keep rising at a rapid rate.
Stocks have rallied this week on better-than-expected earnings reports.
Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com
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