Oct 19 Reuters - U.S. stock index futures rose on Tuesday as an upbeat profit forecast from Johnson Johnson added to the positive momentum in corporate earnings generated by big banks last week.
Johnson's shares rose 1.7% after it raised its adjusted 2021 profit forecast, even though it stuck to its outlook of $2.5 billion in sales from its COVID-19 vaccine this year.
The shares of Walmart Inc rose 2% after Goldman Sachs added the world's largest retailer to the Americas Conviction List Large-cap technology and communications companies such Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp all rose between 0.3% and 0.7%. Netflix Inc rose 0.1% ahead of the quarterly results later in the day.
Following forecast-beating results from big banks last week set a positive tone for this earnings season, investors now turn to results from companies exposed to supply chain constraints, price rises and labor shortages.
Travelers Cos Inc rose 2.7% after the property and casualty insurer beat estimates for Third Quarter profit.
Should we expand upon another solid week of results, this would inject S&P 500 bulls with enough confidence to venture beyond its all-time high, wrote Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM in a client note.
Analysts now expect refinitive 500 earnings to show 32% rise from a year ago, according to S&P 500 data.
ET - Dow - BCE - Mins were up 147 points, or 0.42%, Nasdaq 100 - e-minis became 20 points, or 0.45%, and Dow - Mins were five1.5 points, or 0.34%.