Quarterly reports from components of the Dow Jones, including UnitedHealth Group Inc and Procter & Gamble Co, supported sentiment in pre-market trading, while Bank of America Corp and Morgan Stanley ended the results of large creditors on a note. positive.
“Stocks took a hit last quarter even though they beat estimates, which tells me their prices were inflated,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in New Jersey.
“Now that we’ve seen a bit of selling, when a company posts better than expected earnings, it should get a price hike unlike last quarter.”
UnitedHealth rose 0.6% following the health insurer beat market estimates for its quarterly profit on strong demand in its health insurance business.
Procter & Gamble gained 1.2% following raising its full-year sales forecast, benefiting from higher prices and a resurgence in demand for cleaning products due to a spike in COVID-19 infections.
Bank of America gained 3.9% following reporting a jump in fourth-quarter profit, while Morgan Stanley rose 4.0% following reporting quarterly results that beat market expectations.
Most of the other big banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, reported disappointing results, sending the financials sector and the S&P 500 banking sub-sector down from record highs.
Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 23.1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, according to IBES estimates from Refinitiv.
The Nasdaq index came a hair’s breadth from confirming a 10% correction at the close on Tuesday, following losing 9.7% from its November 19 closing high.
The tech-heavy index also closed below its 200-day moving average, a key technical support level, for the first time in nearly two years as the tech-heavy index came under pressure from a jump in yields of US Treasury reference.
Shares in growth megacapitals including Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc, Tesla Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Netflix Inc rose 1%.
Investors are now awaiting the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week for more information on the central bank’s plan to control inflation. Last week’s data showed that US consumer prices rose sharply in December, marking the biggest annual rise in inflation in nearly four decades.
As of 8:44 a.m. ET, the Dow e-minis were up 90 points, or 0.26%, the S&P 500 e-minis were up 17.25 points, or 0.38%, and the Nasdaq e-minis 100 by 85.5 points, or 0.56%.
Cisco Systems Inc fell 2.4% following Goldman Sachs downgraded the networking equipment maker’s action from “buy” to “neutral”.
United Airlines rose 0.5% before releasing its fourth quarter results following market close. Last week, its counterpart Delta Air Lines announced better-than-expected results. (Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Bansari Mayur Kamdar Bengaluru; editing by Maju Samuel and Bernard Orr)