April retail sales data on tap
Futures pointed to a solidly positive opening for U.S. stocks on Friday ahead of retail sales and industrial production data for April.
All three major U.S. stock indices finished higher yesterday as traders cheered the Centers for Disease control and Prevention’s decision to lift indoor mask guidelines for fully vaccinated people.
Traders will monitor the release of the U.S. retail sales report at 8:30 a.m. ET, which is expected to show monthly growth of 0.5% in April.
Industrial production figures for April are also scheduled to be published this morning.
By 5:30 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow indicated a gain of 168 points, or 0.5% to 34,106. S&P 500 futures added 28.12 points, or 0.68% to 4,135.12 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 147.5 points, or 1.13% to 13,247.75.
Disney slides as revenue, subscriber count falls short of expectations
Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) are tumbling after the company reported second-quarter revenue and streaming service subscriber count that fell shy of what analysts had anticipated.
The entertainment and media conglomerate said late Thursday that overall revenue during the quarter dropped 13% from a year ago to was $15.6 billion. Adjusted earnings came in at 79 cents per share, up from 60 cents in the same period last year.
Analysts had called for adjusted earnings of 28 cents per share on revenue of $15.87 billion.
Disney Plus, the company’s streaming platform, added only 8.7 million new subscribers in the quarter, well below analysts’ estimates of 15 million.
At the time of writing, Disney stock was marked $5.95, or 3.34% to $172.39 a share in pre-market trading Friday.
Dogecoin rises as Elon Musk tweets support for the meme cryptocurrency
Dogecoin, surged 17% on Friday morning, after billionaire Elon Musk once again tweeted his support for the meme cryptocurrency.
The Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) chief executive said that he is working with Doge developers to improve the system transaction efficiency.
“Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising,” he wrote.
Dogecoin jumped about 25% following his tweet and was last at 52 cents, according to CoinDesk data. The virtual currency, which started as a joke, hit a record of 73 cents last week before crashing after Musk called it a “hustle” during his SNL appearance.
