U.S. futures advanced on Thursday morning as investor confidence grew following the latest wave of earnings reports. Meta Platforms Inc. stocks rose by 11% after the company’s Q1 earnings beat Wall Street estimates, while Amazon.com Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Merck & Co., and Intel Corp. are set to release their earnings later in the day.
Contracts of the S&P 500 were up by 0.5%, thereby reversing two days of declines, while the Nasdaq 100 continued Wednesday’s rally, gaining 0.8%. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up by 0.5%.
Bonds remained little changed following Meta’s earnings announcement, with the 10-year Treasury note holding steady at 3.46%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index also remained little changed.
Focus now turns to the recent banking instability and the potential tightening of credit conditions that may unfold, Evercore ISI’s head of central bank strategy Krishna Guha noted. Guha made specific reference to the ongoing issues at First Republic Bank and how any resulting credit policy changes may impact the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision.
“We cannot rule out the possibility developments around First Republic could unfold in a manner that would lead the FOMC to skip May, while signaling a hike in June,” Guha observed.