(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged up on Thursday on growing hopes that the Federal Reserve may slow the pace of its interest rate hikes to tame inflation, while shares of Meta Platforms plunged following a bleak forecast.
Facebook-parent Meta posted a drop in third-quarter profit and forecast a weak holiday quarter with significantly higher costs next year, sending its shares down 19.7% in premarket trade and wiping about $67 billion off its market value.
The downbeat outlook comes on the heels of weak earnings from Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft, which added to recent economic data hinting at a softening economy and raised hopes that the Federal Reserve could be less aggressive at its policy meeting in December.
The Bank of Canada announced a smaller-than-expected rate hike on Wednesday, with investor focus on a decision from the European Central Bank later in the day.
Results from Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc are expected later in the day, as well as U.S. gross domestic product data for the third quarter which will offer further clues on the outlook for monetary policy tightening.
The Commerce Department’s report due at 8:30 a.m. ET is expected to show GDP growth likely rebounded at a 2.4% annualized rate last quarter after two straight quarterly declines.
At 4:56 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 160 points, or 0.5%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 12.25 points, or 0.32%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 1.75 points, or 0.02%.
Twitter Inc rose 1.1% premarket, a day after billionaire Elon Musk said he paid a visit to the social media company’s headquarters ahead of a court-ordered deadline to close his $44 billion takeover deal.
Ford Motor Co fell 1.3% after the automaker reported a net loss in the third quarter.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
