US stock futures stepped mostly higher on Thursday as investors waited for Amazon earnings and assessed fresh signals from Alphabet, following a sharp sell-off that hit technology stocks earlier in the day.
S&P 500 futures (ES=F) edged up 0.2%, while those on the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) rose 0.4%. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F), which includes fewer tech names, hovered just below the flat line.
Wall Street is digesting another batch of corporate earnings, with Big Tech and AI prospects in high focus. Alphabet (GOOG) shares fell 1% in premarket after the Google parent outlined a significant ramp-up in AI investment in its quarterly results. The company projects a rise in spending to as high as $185 billion in 2026.
That outlook helped lift stocks of AI infrastructure-linked companies such as chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), amid renewed optimism around long-term demand tied to the data center buildout. But Qualcomm (QCOM) shares tumbled after the chipmaker issued a softer-than-expected forecast, citing headwinds from a global memory shortage.
Looking ahead, earnings remain in focus, with Amazon (AMZN) taking focus Thursday. Investors will also be watching weekly jobless claims data due in the morning for fresh clues on the health of the labor market.
Software names bore the brunt of a decline Wednesday as Anthropic’s new tools fed concerns about AI disruption to traditional business demand.
Crypto markets were also rattled following a comment from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said the government would not bail out bitcoin (BTC-USD) after a slump that has pushed the token to around $71,000 apiece.
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