Wall Street set to open higher
U.S. stock futures were sharply higher on Thursday, after Chinese Commerce Ministry said that Beijing and Washington have agreed in principle to cancel existing tariffs on each other’s products in simultaneous stages if their trade talks progress.
“In the past two weeks, top negotiators had serious, constructive discussions and agreed to remove the additional tariffs in phases as progress is made on the agreement,” said Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng.
“If China, U.S. reach a phase-one deal, both sides should roll back existing additional tariffs in the same proportion,” Feng added.
By 4:35 a.m. ET, the blue-chip Dow futures indicated a gain of 142 points, or roughly 0.52% to 27,572. The S&P 500 futures rose 12.88 points, or around 0.42% to 3,088, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 42.25 points, or roughly 0.51% to 8,249.50.
Oil futures turn higher on trade hopes
Oil futures also rallied early Thursday, as traders cheered signs of a breakthrough in U.S.-China trade talks.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up $0.60, or 0.97%, at $62.34 per barrel as of 4:35 a.m. ET.
Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $56.91 a barrel, up $0.56, or about 0.99%.
Disney, Dropbox, Ralph Lauren earnings on tap
Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL), Teva Pharmaceutical (NYSE: TEVA), Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH), DISH Network (NASDAQ: DISH), and SeaWorld (NYSE: SEAS) are all scheduled to reveal their earnings reports before the opening bell today.
Meanwhile, entertainment giant Disney (NYSE: DIS) will announce fiscal fourth-quarter results after the closing bell.
Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX), Zillow (NASDAQ: ZG), Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC), and Keurig Dr Pepper (NYSE: KDP) are also going to publish their results after market close.
