Futures inch up as Wall St prepares for more earnings

NEW YORK: U.S. stock index futures crept higher on Wednesday with all eyes on second-quarter results from Tesla and Goldman Sachs, a day after upbeat bank earnings helped the Dow post its longest winning streak in two years.

Goldman Sachs, the last of the big banks to post results, inched up 0.3% in premarket trading. Big U.S. lenders rallied on Tuesday after they said higher interest rates had helped boost profits in the second quarter.

"Banks in general had very low expectations but the ones reporting (on Tuesday) largely beat these expectations," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer atBokeh Capital Partners. The S&P 500 banking index, nevertheless, was still down 3.4% this year in the aftermath of a banking crisis that took down three lenders and pummeled the regional banking sector.

The benchmark S&P 500 index has notched an 18.6% gain in the same period. M&T Bank, Citizens Financial, US Bancorp , Zions Bancorp and Discover Financial also report on Wednesday.

At 05:10 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 65 points, or 0.18%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 2 points, or 0.04%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 5.75 points, or 0.04%. Tesla slipped 0.3% ahead of results expected after the bell. Its strategy to boost sales through price cuts is likely to have powered its strongest revenue growth in five quarters while dragging down margins to a three-year low in the April-June period.

"The question is whether Tesla can continue to drive high volumes, as it becomes much busier on the EV highway ahead, with more big players accelerating their manufacturing efforts," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. The electric carmaker will kick off the earnings season for megacap growth and technology companies whose outsized gains have driven the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 37.2% so far in 2023.

Credit Suisse raised its year-end target on the benchmark S&P 500 to 4,700 from 4,050, citing a decline in the near-term U.S. recession risk and a stronger earnings outlook for the largest technology-related companies. Results from Netflix and IBM later in the day are also on investors' radar.

Shares of Microsoft edged 0.6% higher, a day after the Windows-maker hit an all-time high on announcing it would charge more to access new artificial intelligence features in its Office software. Carvana shed 7.8% after the used-car retailer said on Tuesday it will report its second-quarter results on July 19, ahead of its previously announced date of Aug. 3.