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postUS stock futures slipped on Friday, as chipmaker Intel’s (INTC) disappointing earnings put Wall Street on the back foot after turbulent week stoked by President Trump’s heated pursuit of Greenland.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) retreated roughly 0.2%. Contracts on the S&P 500 (ES=F) and the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) both dropped 0.1% as tech stocks lost some shine.
Intel posted a worse-than-expected outlook late Thursday, weighing on tech sentiment. The chip giant swung to a quarterly loss as it struggled to meet demand for its server chips used in AI data centers. Shares sank over 10% before the bell.
The S&P 500 is poised for back-to-back weekly losses, as the relief that lifted stocks to two straight days of gains wears off. Investors took heart from Trump cooling his Greenland rhetoric and backtracking on proposed tariffs on NATO allies, but a shift out of US assets is gaining traction as US-EU tensions weigh on the dollar (DX-Y.NYB).
Against that backdrop, gold (GC=F) continued to gain after breaking above $4,900 for the first time on Thursday, boosted in part by a Goldman Sachs (GS) call for gold to hit $5,400 by the end of 2026.
But there were signs of progress on the China-US front, as TikTok and ByteDance finally closed a deal with Oracle (ORCL) and others to let it operate in the US. Meanwhile, Beijing has reportedly told China’s big techs they can start preparations to order Nvidia’s (NVDA) H200 chips, whose imports are currently curbed.
In data releases, updates on US manufacturing and services activity in January aren’t expected to move the needle on interest-rate expectations ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week. Trump said Thursday he has a pick for next Fed chair in mind after wrapping up interviews, and he will name the replacement for Jerome Powell “soon.”
LIVE 10 updates
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Intel stock tumbles as company’s Q1 outlook falls short of Wall Street expectations
Intel (INTC) stock tanked by 13% on Friday morning following the company’s fourth quarter results. The US-based chipmaker’s first quarter financial outlook was a disappointment on the Street, and executives’ comments that the company was struggling to keep up with demand also raised concerns.
Yahoo Finance’s Laura Bratton reports:
Read the full earnings breakdown here.
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3 questions about Musk’s Davos appearance
Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban reports:
Read the answers in the takeaway from today’s Morning Brief.
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China tells Alibaba, big tech companies to prep Nvidia H200 orders
Nvidia (NVDA) stock rose before the bell after Bloomberg reported that Beijing has given the go-ahead for China’s tech giants to prepare orders for its H200 chips.
US-listed shares of Nvidia supplier TSMC (TSM) also moved higher on the sign that China is close to granting full formal approval to import the chips, seen as key to AI data centers.
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
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US stocks saw outflow in week Trump threatened tariffs: BofA
Data from the Bank of America (BAC) has shown that investors pulled nearly $17 billion out of US stocks this week, as President Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Europe over Greenland.
Bloomberg News reports:
Read more here.
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Market’s most reliable dip buyers cash in on latest ‘TACO’ turn
The retail crowd’s faith never wavered, even as President Trump escalated his rhetoric against Europe.
Bloomberg News reports:
Read more here.
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Premarket trending tickers: Capital One, Intuitive Surgical, and Coupang
Capital One (COF) stock fell 3% before the bell on Friday. The group released its fourth-quarter results and announced it would acquire startup company Brex for $5.15 billion.
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) stock rose 3% during premarket hours on Friday after beating Wall Street estimates for its fourth quarter revenue and profit on Thursday. The company cited growing demand for its surgical robots used in minimally invasive procedures.
South Korea’s largest e-commerce group, Coupang (CPNG), saw its stock climb on Friday by around 3% after receiving an upgrade from Deutsche Bank (DB) to Buy from Hold. Coupang suffered a cyberattack late last year, leaving investors to seek a US probe over South Korea’s handling of the data leak.
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‘Quiet-quitting’ of US assets fuels boom in bets from EM stocks to gold
Emerging-market stocks, currencies and precious metals are extending a storming start to 2026 as tensions between the US and Europe weigh on the dollar. The rally gathered pace Friday, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index heading for a fifth successive week of gains, its longest winning streak since May.
Bloomberg reports:
Investors are pouring cash into emerging-market funds at a record pace as momentum builds for a rotation out of US holdings. It’s sent the EM stocks gauge to a record high.
While Asian technology shares drive the rally, other regions are also catching up. The benchmark for Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa has risen on all five days of this week and is on course for its best month since 2020. The MSCI EM Latin America Index of equities on Thursday closed its highest since April 2018.
The Greenland tussle — even if it has been mitigated for now — has revived questions about US exceptionalism and the role of the dollar, spurring funds from Europe to India to diversify away from Treasuries. The flow has added an impetus to an EM rally fueled by robust global growth, the AI spending boom and political shifts in Latin America, as well as fiscal and monetary policy orthodoxy in much of the developing world.
People “are looking to diversify away from US assets, and I would kind of describe it as quiet-quitting of US bonds,” TCW Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Katie Koch said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I don’t think there’s going to be a massive announcement, I just think they’re going to look for opportunities to diversify away.”
Read more here.
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US natural gas falls after record-breaking 3-day rally
From Bloomberg:
US natural gas futures (NG=F) pared a record breaking three-day rally, after traders finished exiting short positions and the market braced for a historic winter storm.
Front-month contracts dropped as much as 7.6% to $4.660 per million British thermal units on Friday, after surging 63% over the previous three sessions. Prices were still on track for their biggest weekly gain in records going back to 1990.
This week’s surge was driven by forecasts for below normal temperatures across most of the country, threatening to boost gas consumption and drain inventories. The freeze — particularly in the southern gas-producing states — has raised concerns about water icing in pipelines, potentially disrupting output from this weekend.
Read more here.
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Gold on track for best week since 2020 after safe haven surge
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
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TikTok closes deal with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX for US operation
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
