Dow futures sharply higher
Wall Street looks likely to notch its second straight day of gains on Wednesday as market participants shake off concerns of the Delta coronavirus variant that rocked global stock markets on Monday.
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow indicated a gain of 199 points, or 0.58% to 34,599. S&P 500 futures added 19.62 points, or 0.45% to 4,335.12 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 24.87 points, or 0.17% to 14,747.62.
In energy markets, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures moved up 85 cents, or 1.26% to 68.05 a barrel. Global Brent crude futures were at $70.28, up 93 cents, or 1.34% a barrel.
On Tuesday, the Dow jumped 549.95 points, or 1.6%, to end the session at 34511.99, while Nasdaq Composite climbed 223.89 points, or 1.6% to 14498.88.
The S&P 500 finished 64.57 points, or 1.5% higher to 4323.06, its biggest rally since March.
Netflix adds 1.5 million subscribers in Q2; Confirms move into video games
On the earnings front, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) published its second-quarter financial results late Tuesday and the focus was on whether the streaming giant has been able to grow its subscriber base.
The Silicon Valley firm earned $2.97 per share while revenue came in at $7.34 billion during the quarter. Analysts expected the company to post second-quarter earnings of $3.15 per share on revenue of $7.32 billion.
Netflix said it added 1.54 million global paid net subscribers in the April-June period, well above the 1.19 million that analysts had projected.
The company also confirmed recent reports that it is planning to jump into the video games industry.
“We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV,” Netflix said in its shareholder letter.
Bezos launches to space in Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket
Meanwhile, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and three passengers blasted their way into space Tuesday on the first crewed flight of New Shepard, the spacecraft designed by his space-tourism company Blue Origin.
The New Shepard lifted off from a launchpad in the West Texas desert, southeast of El Paso. It attained an altitude of about 65 miles and passengers remained weightless for several minutes.
The capsule carrying Bezos and his crewmates then returned to earth by a parachute and landed in the Texas desert. The trip lasted for about 10 minutes.
Bezos’ trip came nine days after rival billionaire Sir Richard Branson made his own trip to the edge of space aboard Virgin Galactic’ SpaceShipTwo VVS Unity.
