Investing.com - Here are the top five things you need to know in financial markets on Thursday, October 25:
1. Dow Futures Jump 200 Points as Wall St. Set to Rebound
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open, indicating that Wall Street was set to rebound after the previous day's tumble wiped out the Dow's gains for the year and pushed the Nasdaq into correction territory.
At 5:20AM ET, the blue-chip Dow futures were up 200 points, or about 0.8%, the S&P 500 futures rose 23 points, or around 0.9%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a gain of 98 points, or roughly 1.4%.
Stocks plummeted on Wednesday as a sharp drop in tech shares and worries about corporate earnings added fuel to this month's steep pullback.
Elsewhere, in Europe, the region's major bourses were off their session lows in mid-morning trade. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was slightly above the flatline despite falling hard at the open, as tech stocks returned to positive ground.
Earlier, Asia markets mostly tumbled, with Japan's Nikkei sinking as much as 4% to a six-month trough.
The Shanghai Composite, however, erased earlier losses of more than 2.5% to close fractionally higher.
2. Amazon, Alphabet Highlight Busiest Day of Earnings Season
Investors will be inundated with corporate earnings as 66 members of the S&P 500 and two Dow components are scheduled to report results in what will be the busiest day of the third-quarter earnings season.
Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), Grubhub (NYSE:GRUB), Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Altria (NYSE:MO), General Electric (NYSE:GE), Raytheon (NYSE:RTN), Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG), American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL), and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) are all due ahead of the opening bell.
But most of the focus will fall on Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), which both report earnings after the closing bell.
According to estimates, Amazon’s earnings per share should total $3.08 while revenues are expected to total $57.09 billion.
Meanwhile, Alphabet is expected by analysts on average to report earnings per share of $10.45 on revenue of $27.3 billion.
Joining them after the close will be Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Snap (NYSE:SNAP), Chipotle (NYSE:CMG), Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC), AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) and Gilead (NASDAQ:GILD).
3. Tesla Shines in Pre-market Trade
Tesla reported a net profit, positive cash flow and wider-than-expected margins for the latest quarter, delivering on Chief Executive Elon Musk's promise to turn the electric carmaker profitable as higher production volumes of its new Model 3 began to pay off.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) reiterated late on Wednesday that it expected to repeat its net profit in the current quarter, helping drive the company's shares up around 10% in pre-market trading.
Other big pre-market movers included Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which gained 4% as the company reported better than expected earnings and revenue after Wednesday's closing bell.
At the other end, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) shares looked set for a big down day, with shares plunging 18% as the chipmaker missed on revenue for the current quarter and released weak fourth-quarter guidance.
4. Durable Goods Data, Fed Speakers
Investors will get a key piece of economic data when the Commerce Department releases the September report on durable goods orders at 8:30AM ET (1230GMT).
Analysts expect total durable goods orders, which include transportation items, to fall 1.3% from the prior month.
At the same time, the goods trade balance for September arrives, with economists predicting a slight narrowing of the deficit.
Also due in the morning are weekly jobless claims figures, preliminary numbers for September wholesale inventories, as well as the latest data on pending home sales and the Kansas City Fed’s manufacturing activity index.
On the central bank front, a pair of speeches are scheduled to take place.
Topping the agenda will be remarks from Richard Clarida, who will deliver his first major address as new vice chair. He is due to speak about the economic outlook and monetary policy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Luncheon, in Washington DC at 4:15PM ET (2015GMT).
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester will speak at an event at New York University at 9:30PM ET.
5. European Central Bank Policy Meeting
The European Central Bank is all but certain to keep interest rates at their current record low levels when it announces its policy decision at 7:45AM ET (1145GMT).
The announcement will be followed by President Mario Draghi's news conference at 8:30AM ET (1230GMT).
Investors will be looking for any new guidance acknowledging the recent slowdown in growth as well as the political stand-off between Brussels and Rome over Italy's free spending budget.
The ECB has previously pledged to end its bond-buying program by year-end, while keeping interest rates at current levels well into 2019.
The euro was a shade higher against the dollar at 1.1410 (EUR/USD), recovering from a two-month low of 1.1381 hit on Wednesday.