U.S. stock index futures steadied on Wednesday evening after gains in Alphabet and bets on interest rate cuts boosted Wall Street during the session, with focus now turning to key upcoming payrolls data.
Nonfarm payrolls data due on Friday is expected to provide more cues on rates, and comes just over a week before a Federal Reserve meeting, where the central bank is widely expected to cut interest rates.
Softer-than-expected JOLTS job openings data spurred increased bets that Friday’s payrolls data will also read weaker, furthering the case for a Fed rate cut later this month.
Markets were pricing in a 94.6% chance the Fed will cut rates by 25 basis points during a September 17-18 meeting, CME Fedwatch showed.
S&P 500 Futures were flat at 6,455.5 points, while Nasdaq 100 Futures fell slightly to 23,438.75 points by 20:00 ET (00:00 GMT). Dow Jones Futures fell 0.15% to 45,238.0 points.
Salesforce drops on weak earnings
Futures were pressured by an over 5% aftermarket drop in Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM), after the enterprise software giant’s quarterly earnings underwhelmed.
The company also forecast third-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates, indicating that monetization of its artificial intelligence agent platforms was falling behind.
But the company announced a $20 billion increase to an ongoing share buyback program, helping limit steeper declines in its shares.
Salesforce’s earnings come amid growing market focus on whether cloud firms can justify the billions of dollars invested in AI over the past two years. The company has invested heavily in its agentic AI offerings, which it has touted as its next big growth driver.
Wall St boosted by Alphabet, Apple, after favorable ruling
Wall Street indexes closed higher on Wednesday, boosted chiefly by an over 9% surge in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) after a federal court ruling against the company was not as harsh as initially feared.
Alphabet will be allowed to retain its Google Chrome browser and Android operating system, but will be required to share some search data with its rivals.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares surged nearly 4% on the ruling, given that it also allows Google to continue paying Apple to keep the former as the default search engine on its devices.
Alphabet shares steadied in aftermarket trade. In a separate, long-running class action against the firm, a San Francisco federal jury decided that Google must pay $425 million over allegedly collecting data from users despite their opting out of the feature.
Gains in Alphabet helped the S&P 500 rise 0.5% to 6,448.28 points on Wednesday. The NASDAQ Composite jumped 1% to 21,497.73 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell slightly to 45,270.89 points.
Wall Street was nursing a weak start to September, amid increased uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, after an appeals court ruled against their imposition. Stocks were also due for some profit-taking after a strong August.
Source :
https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/us-stock-futures-steady-as-alphabet-boost-fades-rate-cuts-payrolls-in-focus-4223240
