The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were set to open lower on Thursday, following mixed earnings from a slew of Wall Street lenders on the last day of a holiday-shortened week, while Twitter shares jumped after billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover offer.
Twitter Inc jumped 6.4 percent in premarket trading after Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk offered to buy the social media company for about $41 billion. The electric-car maker’s shares fell 2.0 percent.
Among big banks, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, rose between 0.9 percent and 1.3 percent on beating analyst expectations for profit despite a sharp drop in first-quarter earnings.
Wells Fargo & Co. fell 3.8 percent after reporting a 21 percent drop in quarterly profit.
“The banks reflect some of the concerns that investors have with the market in general,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
“The inflation has helped them on the revenue side, but hurt them on the cost side ... when you consider the types of reserves they feel they need to take, they’re not producing the bottom line growth that markets become very addicted to.”
Bank of America, scheduled to report on Monday, was trading flat.
Overall, analysts have been less optimistic about earnings this quarter amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, soaring inflation, and a more hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve.
At 8:43 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 11 points, or 0.03 percent, S&P 500 e-minis were down 8.5 points, or 0.19 percent, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 25.25 points, or 0.18 percent.
U.S. retail sales increased in March, mostly boosted by higher gasoline and food prices, but consumers are showing signs of cutting back on discretionary spending amid high inflation.
