Twitter soars on Musk’s takeover offer, futures edge higher ahead of bank earnings

U.S. stock index futures ticked higher on Thursday, ahead of first-quarter earnings from a slew of Wall Street lenders on the last day of a holiday-shortened week, while Twitter shares jumped after Elon Musk’s takeover offer.

Among big banks that are reporting later in the day, Morgan Stanley edged lower, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co gained between 0.3% and 0.8% in premarket trading.

Quarterly results from big U.S. banks are expected to show a sharp decline in investment banking revenue and first-quarter earnings overall due to companies pausing deals amid choppy equity markets.

JPMorgan Chase & Co’s CEO Jamie Dimon warned of economic uncertainties arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring inflation on Wednesday, after first-quarter profits at the largest U.S. bank slumped 42%.

Nevertheless, Wall Street’s main indexes rallied sharply in the previous session after a rough start to the week boosted by a recovery in tech and tech-adjacent stocks as treasury yields receded from near three-year highs.

Twitter Inc jumped 12% after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he has offered to buy 100% of the social media company for $54.2 per share in cash.

UnitedHealth Group Inc rose 1.1% after reporting a 3.5% rise in quarterly profit, helped in part by strength at its Optum healthcare services unit.

At 6:15 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 66 points, or 0.19%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 1 point, or 0.02%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 15.75 points, or 0.11%.

In economic news, the Commerce Department is expected to release retail sales data at 8:30 a.m. ET, which is expected to have increased 0.6% in March following a 0.3% gain in the earlier month.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits data, also released at the same time, is expected to have risen 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 171,000 for the week ended April 9.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)