Futures soar as heavyweight stocks rebound

Jul 21 (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Friday as heavyweights and growth tech stocks rebounded from sharp declines in the previous session.

The S&P 500 and Dow are poised to end the week in the red, with the Dow on track for its tenth consecutive session of gains, helped by Johnson & Johnson’s shares rallied amid good earnings forecasts for the drugmaker.

While the Fed is expected to raise rates by 25 basis points at its July 25-26 meeting, market participants are ambivalent about the Fed’s next move.

“We expect Powell to be careful not to imply that the FOMC has already reached an agreement (on interest rates), but (we) are confident that he really wants to slow down and that the FOMC will ultimately miss the September hike,” Goldman Sachs’ David Merikle said in a research note.

Dow futures were little changed at 15:10 Moscow time, the S&P 500 was up 0.25%, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.52%.

Toymaker Mattel shares rose 1.5% on the release of the long-awaited Barbie movie.

American Express fell 2% after the credit card giant alerted investors by keeping its full-year profit forecast unchanged.

SLB fell 1.4% even as the leading oilfield services company’s quarterly profits were good as the recovery in global drilling activity boosted demand for its equipment.

Morgan Stanley has raised its forecast for US GDP growth in 2023, driven by a strong manufacturing sector and increased public investment in infrastructure, and expects a more “comfortable” soft landing for the economy.

Traders are also expecting a special rebalancing of the Nasdaq 100 multi-billion dollar index on Friday after trading closes.

The original message in English is available at the code: (Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Johann M Cherian in Bangalore)