BLBG: U.S. Stock-Index Futures Advance as Alcoa Starts Earnings Season
U.S. stock-index futures climbed, signaling the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will halt a two-day drop, as Alcoa Inc. began the earnings season with better-than-forecast quarterly numbers.
Futures on the S&P 500 expiring in March added 0.4 percent to 2,029.7 at 6:29 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts advanced 68 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,639. Energy companies dropped in early New York trading as oil extended losses to below $45 a barrel.
“Earnings season kicked off with an optimistic tone though it’s been a shaky start to the year,” said Heinz-Gerd Sonnenschein, a strategist at Deutsche Postbank AG in Bonn. “Investors are still very nervous. Good profit and sales figures will lift some stocks.”
The S&P 500 declined 0.8 percent yesterday. The measure deepened a drop in the final minutes of trading after Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams, who votes on policy this year, said raising interest rates in June would be a close call amid a strong labor market and weaker wage gains. The benchmark gauge has fallen 3 percent since a record in December as oil prices dropped to the lowest since April 2009, prompting analysts to cut their profit forecasts for index members.
Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer, rose 2 percent in premarket trading after late yesterday reporting fourth-quarter profit and sales that beat analysts’ estimates.
Earnings Season
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., and Intel Corp. and 16 other S&P 500 companies report results this week. Earnings at companies in the gauge probably climbed 2 percent in the final quarter of 2014, and 2.8 percent in the current period, analysts forecast. That’s down from October estimates of 8.5 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively.
Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. rose more than 1 percent in early New York trading, indicating technology shares may rebound from a two-day drop.
Transocean Ltd., Chevron Corp., and Occidental Petroleum Corp. retreated. Energy stocks have posted the worst performance among 10 S&P 500 industry groups so far this year.
Later this week, investors will also weigh economic reports, including retail sales, manufacturing in the New York region and industrial production, for clues on the health of the world’s largest economy. The slump in oil has damped inflation, leaving it below the Fed’s target even as the economy shows signs of accelerating.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sofia Horta e Costa in London at shortaecosta@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecile Vannucci at cvannucci1@bloomberg.net Namitha Jagadeesh, Trista Kelley
