U.S. Stocks May Move To The Upside On Upbeat Meta Earnings, Guidance

After ending the previous session little changed, stocks may move to the upside in early trading on Thursday. The major index futures are currently pointing to a modestly higher open for the markets, with the S&P 500 futures up by 0.2 percent.

A positive reaction to earnings news from Meta Platforms (META) may lead to early strength on Wall Street, as the Facebook parent is spiking by 9.2 percent in pre-market trading.

The surge by Meta comes after the company reported better than expected fourth quarter results and forecast first quarter revenues above analyst estimates.

Shares of IBM Corp. (IBM) are also moving sharply higher in pre-market trading after the tech giant reported fourth quarter results that exceeded expectations on both the top and bottom lines.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA) may also move to the upside after reporting better than expected fourth quarter results.

On the other hand, a steep drop by shares of Microsoft (MSFT) may limit the upside for the markets, with the software giant plunging by 6.3 percent in pre-market trading.

The slump by Microsoft comes after the company reported slowing cloud computing growth in its fiscal second quarter and provided disappointing third quarter operating margin guidance.

In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department released a report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits slipped from an upwardly revised level in the week ended January 24th.

The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 209,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 210,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 205,000 from the 200,000 originally reported for the previous month.

A separate report released by the Commerce Department on Thursday showed the U.S. trade deficit surged by much more than expected in the month of November.

After failing to sustain an early move to the upside, the major U.S. stocks indexes quickly gave back ground and spent much of the rest of Wednesday’s session lingering near the unchanged line. The major averages eventually ended the day narrowly mixed.

While the S&P 500 edged down 0.57 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 6,978.03, the Dow crept up 12.19 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 49,015.60 and the Nasdaq rose 40.35 points or 0.2 percent to 23,857.45.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index closed marginally higher, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index edged up by 0.2 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed by 0.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets are turning in a mixed performance on the day. While the German DAX Index is down by 1.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index is up by 0.7 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index is up by 0.9 percent.

In commodities trading, crude oil futures are surging $2.04 to $63.25 a barrel after jumping $0.82 to $63.21 a barrel on Wednesday. Meanwhile, after soaring $221 to $5,303.60 an ounce in the previous session, gold futures are spiking $207.60 to $5,511.20 an ounce.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar is trading at 153.26 yen versus the 153.40 yen it fetched at the close of New York trading on Wednesday. Against the euro, the dollar is valued at $1.1958 compared to yesterday’s $1.1952.