BANGKOK – Wall Street was heading for more gains before the open on Friday as markets try to log their first winning week of 2025 on the final day of trading during the Biden presidency.
Futures for the S&P 500 climbed 0.6% before the bell and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%. If those gains hold, it would be the best week for U.S. markets since early November.
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Shares of JB Hunt tumbled 10% after the transport company missed Wall Street's fourth-quarter profit targets as revenues continued to decline. The company said it expected margins to shrink again in the first quarter of 2025 as insurance premiums and labor costs continue to rise.
Qorvo jumped more than 7% after the Wall Street Journal reported that activist investor Starboard Value had taken a 7.7% stake in the company and would push for changes to improve its profits and share price.
More than a handful of regional banks issued a mixed bag of earnings reports on Friday. Those followed blowout reports earlier in the week from the nation's bigger banks, which saw their profits soar in the fourth quarter.
Smaller regional banks have been under the microscope since the 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature and First Republic. Another batch of regional bank earnings will come next week.
European shares rose Friday after a mixed session in Asia, as China reported that its economy grew at a 5% annual pace last year, hitting the government’s target but slowing from the year before.
Strong exports and policies aimed at spurring more consumer spending and investment helped drive a boom in manufacturing, which jumped nearly 6% from a year earlier, the Chinese government reported.
Share benchmarks in China showed scant reaction, given that the 5% annual growth exactly matched the government's target for “about 5%” growth in 2024. The economy grew 5.4% year-on-year in the October-December quarter.
Economists are forecasting a further slowing of growth this year and beyond, and President-elect Donald Trump's threats to raise U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have added to Beijing's challenges as it faces a raft of moves by Washington to limit access to advanced technology, such as computer chips used in artificial intelligence.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.3% to 19,584.06 and the Shanghai Composite index added 0.2% to 3,241.82.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index lost 0.3% to 38,451.46. Shares in gaming giant Nintendo dropped 4.3% in Tokyo as investors apparently were unimpressed by the company's newest console, which gamers have been waiting for since rumors of its release first spread years ago. The company promised more details about the Switch 2 in April and said it will be released this year.
In South Korea, the Kospi shed 0.2% to 2,523.55. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2% lower to 8,310.40.
Taiwan's Taiex gained 0.5% after computer chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., or TSMC, reported Thursday that its profit in the last quarter jumped 57%. The world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer — which has found itself in the middle of a trade and technology rift between the U.S. and China — said it results were propelled by the artificial intelligence boom.
TSMC U.S.-traded shares rose 3.9% on Thursday. Early Friday, its Taiwan-traded shares were up 1.4%.
The Sensex in India declined 0.6% and the SET in Bangkok lost 0.9%.
At midday, Germany’s DAX and the CAC 40 in Paris both jumped 1.1%, while Britain’s FTSE 100 surged 1.4%.
Also Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 57 cents to $77.28 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave back 63 cents, trading at $80.66 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 155.57 Japanese yen from 155.16 yen late Thursday. The euro was at $1.0288, down from $1.0301.