Stock futures dip even after Amazon reports profit surge

Futures contracts tied to the major U.S. stock indexes dipped at the start of the overnight session Thursday evening as investors pored over a flurry of earnings results and a robust profit beat from e-commerce giant Amazon.

Contracts tied to the S&P 500 fell less than 0.1%, while those linked to the Dow shed 20 points. Nasdaq 100 futures also dropped just under the flatline.

The after-hours moves came amid a deluge of earnings activity after the close of regular trading.

Amazon, the last of Wall Street’s mega-cap tech companies to publish results, reported a record first-quarter profit. The Seattle-based firm said profits more than tripled to $8.1 billion and January-to-March sales soared 44% to $108 billion.

The company’s results showed demand remained strong for its massive online retail business, as well as its high-growth cloud-computing and advertising businesses. Shares rose 3.7% in extended trading.

Twitter, meanwhile, moved in the opposite direction on user growth results and second-quarter revenue guidance that fell short of analysts’ forecasts. The social media platform said monetizable daily active users totaled 199 million during the three months ended March 31 and reported per-share earnings of 16 cents.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Colgate-Palmolive will all report earnings on Friday.

Twitter and Amazon’s equity performance should influence the S&P 500 during the week’s final day of trading. The index closed at record levels on Thursday on the heels of blowout earnings results from Apple and Facebook.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the regular session up 0.7%, while the S&P 500 advanced just under 0.7% to finish the day at 4,211.47, a new closing high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which began the day up 1%, underperformed with a gain of just over 0.2%.

So far this week, the S&P 500 is up 0.75%, the Dow is up less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite is up 0.47%.

Wall Street will also be keep a close eye on personal income and spending data, set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday morning. That data could provide investors, and the Federal Reserve, with a valuable look at how quickly prices are rising across the U.S. economy as it recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday that the central bank would need to see inflation sustained about 2% “for some time” before it moved to rein in its supportive asset purchases and near-zero interest rates.

“All arrows are pointing to another increase in inflationary pressures. Keep in mind, the Fed knows this; they are prepared for it,” wrote Patrick Leary, chief market strategist at Incapital. “While I won’t say whether or not the inflation we are seeing right now will be indeed be transitory or more sustained, I am willing to bet that it will go higher and persist longer than the market will tolerate.”