Stock futures were holding onto slim gains as investors digested a flood of mixed earnings from heavy-hitters like Goldman Sachs (GS), IBM (IBM) and General Electric (GE).
Early pressure on the Nasdaq Composite stemming from disappointing earnings from Google (GOOG, GOOGL) dissipated as better-than-expected earnings from flash drive maker SanDisk (SNDK) lifted the tech index out of negative territory. Blue-chips were still trying to put in some distance from negative territory as missed earnings from IBM overshadow upbeat earnings from the financial sector.
The jobs data did little to significantly move the market even though initial jobless claims rose by a much less than expected 2,000 to 304,000 new claims for the latest survey week, beating estimates for a 12,000 gain.
Later this morning, the Philadelphia Fed will release its business conditions index for April, expected to increase to 10.0 from 9.0 in March.
European equities have recovered early losses and are back in the black thanks to action in the U.S. Early weakness tied to geo-political tensions was reversed by German inflation data that provided the European Central Bank with ammunition to increase monetary stimulus.
-Dow Jones Industrial up 0.10%
-S&P 500 futures up 0.15%
-Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.36%
SENTIMENT
Nikkei unchanged
Hang Seng up 0.28%
Shanghai Composite down 0.30%
FTSE-100 up 0.42%
DAX-30 up 0.60%
PRE-MARKET SECTOR WATCH
(+/-) Large cap tech: mixed
(+) Chip stocks: higher
(+/-) Software stocks: mixed
(-) Hardware stocks: lower
(+/-) Internet stocks: mixed
(+) Drug stocks: higher
(+) Financial stocks: higher
(+) Retail stocks: higher
(+) Industrial stocks: higher
(+) Airlines: higher
(+) Autos: higher
UPSIDE MOVERS:
(+) SNDK (+6.79%) Beat on earnings and revenue
(+) PEP (+2.04%) Beat Q1 earnings with EPS of $0.83 vs $0.75 consensus
(+) BX (+3.91%) Reported better than expected earnings
DOWNSIDE MOVERS:
(-) IBM (-4.34%) Met earning expectations but missed on revenue
(-) REGI (-13.0%) Lowered Q1 earnings guidance
(-) GOOG, GOOGL (-1.60%) Reported Q1 revenue of $15.42 billion vs estimates of $15.52 billion, EPS was $6.27, vs. expectations of $6.41 per share.
