Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading
Wall Street was on track to open with gains on Friday, adding to record highs ahead of next week's busy slate of earnings, job market reports and the tariff deadline.
Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both were up 0.1% before the bell. Nasdaq futures were flat.
The S&P and Nasdaq both closed at record highs on Thursday and markets are currently on track to finish the week with gains for the fourth time in the past five weeks.
Intel shares tumbled more than 7% overnight after the chipmaker announced plans to reduce its "core" workforce by nearly one-quarter and cut other expenses in a bid to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker. Intel, which helped launch Silicon Valley as the U.S. technology hub, has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices while demand for artificial intelligence chips soars.
Deckers Brands was up more than 13% overnight after the shoe company easily beat Wall Street's sales and profit targets. Deckers said first-quarter sales rose 17% from the same quarter last year, to $965 million, on the strength of its Ugg and Hoka brands.
Boston Beer Co., the maker of Samuel Adams beer and Truly hard seltzer, climbed 7.8% after its second-quarter profit came in well ahead of analysts' forecasts. Boston Beer saw its net income rise more than 15% over last year, boosting its earnings per share in the period to $5.45. Analysts were expecting profit of $3.86 per share.
Stocks have broadly been rallying for weeks on hopes that President Donald Trump will reach trade deals with other countries that will lower his stiff proposed tariffs, along with the risk that they could cause a recession and drive up inflation. The deadline for those negotiations comes next Friday, Aug. 1.
Next week brings the peak of earnings season, with more than 100 companies in the benchmark S&P 500 reporting their latest results.
The economic data calendar is also full, with three separate reports on the labor market, including the always closely-watched monthly jobs report.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany's DAX shed 0.8%, while Britain's FTSE 100 slid 0.4%. In Paris, the CAC 40 slipped 0.1%.
In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% to 41,456.23 after two days of gains following President Donald Trump's announcement of a trade deal that would place a 15% tax on imports from Japan. That's lower than the 25% rate that Trump had earlier said would kick in on Aug. 1.
Data released on Friday showed the inflation rate in Japan's capital Tokyo rose 2.9% year-on-year in July, down from 3.1% in June. Japanese government efforts to moderate inflation are working, though underlying Tokyo price pressures remain elevated, ING Economics said in a commentary. It expects the Bank of Japan to hold interest rates steady at its July 30-31 meeting, but said the central bank would likely raise its forecast for inflation.
In Chinese markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.1% to 25,388.35 and the Shanghai Composite index slid 0.3% to 3,593.66.
Next week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he will meet with Chinese officials in Stockholm, Sweden, to work toward a trade deal with Beijing ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline. Trump has said a China trip "is not too distant" as trade tensions ease.
"One big question for markets is whether the tariff ceasefire is extended. We expect that an agreement will be attainable, but, in the interim, markets will watch closely to see if there are adjustments to current tariff rates in either direction," ING Economics said.
In South Korea, the Kospi picked up 0.2% to 3,196.05, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 8,666.90.
Taiwan's Taiex edged less than 0.1% lower, and in India, the Sensex fell 0.9%.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 added 0.1% to its all-time high set the day before, closing at 6,363.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7% to 44,693.91, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2% to a record 21,057.96.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil added 27 cents to $66.30 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, also rose 27 cents to $68.63 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 147.65 Japanese yen from 147.00 yen. The euro fell to $1.1723 from $1.1750.
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