Wall St. set to open higher after bumper earnings from big banks

U.S. stocks were set to open higher on Friday after Morgan Stanley wrapped up earnings reports from the big U.S. banks with a profit surge, while optimism about a solid economic rebound put the main indexes on course for weekly gains.

Wall Street’s three main indexes have bounced this month as upbeat economic data as well as the Federal Reserve’s pledge to keep interest rates low despite higher inflation boosted demand, particularly for richly valued technology stocks.

Morgan Stanley reported a 150% jump in quarterly profit that beat market expectations as its investment banking and trading desks benefited from a global dealmaking boom and record levels of capital markets activity.

Its shares rose 0.5% in volatile premarket trading, but gains were capped as it also disclosed an almost $1 billion loss from the collapse of private fund Archegos.

Bumper earnings earlier this week from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, and Bank of America have all reinforced hopes of a swift economic recovery.

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“So far, the financial sector has reported very strong earnings, and that could be key for this earnings season,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

“There seems to be a new burst of enthusiasm, also because we have a back off in yields. It is certainly helpful in terms of risk.”

Global equities also hit record highs as China’s GDP grew at a record 18.3% in the first quarter. A separate set of numbers on Thursday showed U.S. retail sales rose by the most in 10 months in March and weekly jobless claims fell for the week ended April 10.

The benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow are on course for their fourth straight week of gains, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq is less than a percent below its own all-time peak.

Tech behemoths Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc Microsoft Corp, which led Wall Street’s recovery last year from the coronavirus-fueled crash, edged up in trading before the bell.

At 08:24 a.m. EDT, Dow E-minis were up 70 points, or 0.21% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 31.75 points, or 0.23%. S&P 500 E-minis were up 8.75 points, or 0.21%.

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(Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)