US pre-open: Stocks higher following Fed decision, tech earnings

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were in the green ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants digested quarterly earnings from several big-name tech firms. As of 1230 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.17%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.37% and 0.59% firmer, respectively.

The Dow closed 136.83 points lower on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve Bank opted to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged following its two-day policy meeting, as expected.

In the corporate space, shares in Facebook parent company Meta Platforms traded higher ahead of the opening bell after its Q4 numbers beat on both the top and bottom lines, while software giant Microsoft headed south after Azure cloud computing revenues narrowly missed consensus estimates and electric carmaker Tesla shares accelerated in pre-market despite its Q4 results falling short of Wall Street expectations.

Still to come, Apple will publish its latest quarterly earnings after the close of trading.

On the macro front, weekly jobless claims figures from the Labor Department will be out at 1330 GMT, as will a preliminary reading of Q4 GDP numbers, while December pending home sales data will follow at 1500 GMT.

Also in focus, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped to 4.50% in pre-market trading, the lowest level seen in more than a month, providing a tailwind for major indices.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com