Markets on Wall Street leaned toward small losses early Friday as investors took in more corporate earnings while waiting for the government's January report on retail sales.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each dipped 0.1% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2%.
Airbnb soared 13.8% after its fourth-quarter sales and profit easily beat expectations as the online vacation rental platform saw strong growth in nights stayed.
Video streamer Roku also logged a big gain in premarket — 14% — after it posted a smaller loss than analysts were expecting. The company also beat sales targets as its quarterly platform revenue topped $1 billion for the first time.
Despite posting a wider loss than Wall Street forecast, online betting platform DraftKings rose 5% in premarket. For the first time, DraftKings posted an adjusted full-year profit, while raising its revenue projections for 2025.
Later Friday, the Commerce Department releases retail sales data for January. Consumers have largely been propping up the U.S. economy since the height of the pandemic, despite elevated interest rates and persistent inflation.
Economists broadly expect that trend to continue, though uncertainty over President Donald Trump's policies — particularly tariffs — could derail free-spending consumers, they say.
Asian stocks were mostly up Friday on the back of a near-record rally on U.S. stocks, as investors paid little attention to Trump’s latest tariff threats.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged 3.69% to 22,620.33, while the Shanghai Composite was up 0.43% to 3,346.72. The Nikkei 225 slid 0.79% to 39,149.43. Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia was up 0.19% to 8,555.80 and South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.31% to 2,591.05.
“There are much tailwinds for risk sentiments in the region to tap on, with the positive handover in Wall Street, weaker US dollar and lower Treasury yields,” Yeap Jun Rong, a market strategist at IG, wrote in a note.
“However, Japan’s Nikkei lagged, likely pressured by a stronger yen,” he said.
Chinese technology stocks listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange all gained on Friday, with stocks from video games firm Tencent and smartphone maker Xiaomi surging 7% while e-commerce firm Alibaba and online services firm Meituan gained over 6%.
Chinese technology firms have enjoyed renewed interest since Chinese AI company DeepSeek released an artificial intelligence model that rivals those of OpenAI while being trained on cheaper hardware. Companies like Alibaba have in recent weeks also released new iterations of their own AI models, and search engine firm Baidu said Friday that it would make its Ernie Bot AI chatbot available for free to public.
At midday in Europe, France’s CAC 40 was up 0.3%, while Germany’s DAX dipped 0.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.3%.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S crude added 63 cents to $71.92 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 68 cents to $75.70 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar ticked down to 152.78 Japanese yen from 152.82 yen. The euro cost $1.0479, up from $1.0466.
___