Dow futures rise slightly ahead of key inflation data

U.S. stock futures were slightly higher on Wednesday night ahead of key inflation data due Thursday morning.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 60 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were flat.

Shares of Disney jumped 8% after hours after the company reported a quarterly earnings beat and a doubling of revenue from its parks, experiences and consumer products division. Uber gained 5% in extended trading after reporting a revenue beat and a bounce back from omicron-induced challenges.

In regular trading, Nasdaq Composite jumped for a second day as tech shares led the market higher and helped it recover some losses from the January sell-off, which was also led by tech names. The Nasdaq jumped 2.08% and the S&P 500 gained 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 305.28 points, or 0.86%.

Early pandemic winners of 2022, including Shopify and Etsy, as well as stay-at-home stocks like DocuSign and Zoom, were some of the biggest winners Wednesday.

“The market seems to have found a more constructive tone in the tug of war between trepidation over the Fed and the better fundamentals that we’ve seen in both earnings and the economic data,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities. “Having Disney do better than Netflix after its earnings report certainly seems to be a positive.”

Last month Netflix reported disappointing quarterly earnings, which added to investors skittishness towards tech stocks and the volatility in trading that followed.

Bond yields, which have surged this year, cooled slightly, perhaps helping boost tech shares. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note traded near 1.945%.

Investors were also preparing for Thursday’s Consumer Price Index report, which is expected to show headline inflation for January at the highest pace since 1982. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, is expected to rise by 0.4%, or 7.2% year-over-year.

“You’d be hard pressed to find anybody that doesn’t believe the CPI number’s going to be hot, because we seem to be playing a game of leapfrog, with everyone trying to get more hawkish about what the Fed may or may not do and monetary policy in 2022. That tends to set us up for a continuation of the rally,” Hogab said.

Twitter, Coca-Cola and Kellogg are scheduled to report earnings before the opening bell Thursday. Expedia, Affirm and Zillow will report after the closing bell.