Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
S&P 500 futures edged higher on Thursday as investors parsed the latest batch of corporate earnings.
Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.5%, while futures tracking the Broad Index were up 0.32%. Futures tied to the Dow added just 11 points, or less than 0.1%.
Despite beating analysts’ expectations, IBM fell nearly 2%. The legacy technology giant also said it would cut 3,900 jobs, or about 1.5% of its workforce.Meanwhile, Tesla’s shares rose as the electric car maker reported record earnings and better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. After that, it jumped 7%.
“Obviously we’re in the middle of earnings season right now,” said Bill Norsey, senior investment director at US Bank.
These reports come after various sessions on Wall Street. The Dow ended Wednesday’s session with him up 0.03% after falling more than 400 points. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 were down just 0.18% and 0.02% respectively.
Investors will watch Thursday for earnings from airlines including Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Intel will also report. They will also look at morning data on unemployment claims, GDP, durable goods and new home sales.
Elsewhere, Chevron added nearly 3% after announcing a $75 billion share buyback program.