Futures tied to the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 fell on Friday, with most technology stocks, including Nvidia, remaining under pressure following a selloff in the previous session, as concerns over stretched valuations in the sector persisted.
Market Snapshot
At 07:07 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 102 points, or 0.22%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 9 points, or 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 97.5 points, or 0.4%.
Pre-Market Movers
Nvidia dropped 1.7% in premarket trading. The chip maker's shares see-sawed on Thursday, starting the session higher following a solid third-quarter earnings report before reversing course to close down 3%. Nvidia's report and better-than-expected guidance gave the market a solid read on artificial-intelligence demand but failed to reassure investors who have been fretting about where the money is coming from and whether it will be well spent.
Intel fell 0.9%. CEO Lip-Bu Tan downplayed rumors that a recent hire from $Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing(TSMWF)$ had taken company data from the Taiwanese chip manufacturer. Local media reported this week that Taiwanese officials were investigating Wei-Jen Lo, who joined Intel in October. U.S.-listed shares of TSMC were down 3.1%.
Cryptocurrency stocks were slumping ahead of the opening bell as a brutal Bitcoin selloff raged on. Digital-asset exchange Coinbase Global slid 1.8%, trading platform Robinhood Markets fell 2.2%, and Strategy was down 5%.
Intuit rose 3.1% after the maker of TurboTax beat analysts' estimates for earnings and revenue in its fiscal first quarter. The business software company aims to boost growth through artificial-intelligence products. Intuit's earnings guidance looked a little soft, although Chief Financial Officer Sandeep Aujla told Barron's that the company doesn't raise its financial guidance before the company is finished with the crucial tax season, which brings in the most revenue for it each fiscal year.
Gap gained 3.2% after the clothing retailer reported that its third-quarter comparable-store sales had jumped 5% from a year ago; analysts were predicting a 3% increase. Profit was better than expected as well: Earnings came in at 62 cents a share, topping estimates of 59 cents.
Ross Stores climbed 2.7% after the off-price retailer raised its fiscal-year earnings guidance to a range of $6.38 to $6.46 a share, up from $6.08 to $6.21 previously. The guidance hike came the same day as Walmart delivered a "beat-and-raise" quarter, helping to reassure investors that consumer spending remains robust.
Elastic N.V. plunged 12%, even though the Dutch-American software company reported better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter earnings and raised its fiscal-year revenue guidance. Investors have been punishing tech stocks amid the AI bubble fears, which is probably what fueled the selloff. It was a similar story for cloud software provider Veeva Systems, which tumbled 8.5% despite topping analysts' earnings targets.
Warehouse chain BJ's Wholesale Club is set to report earnings ahead of the opening bell Friday. Shares were 0.1% lower in premarket trading.
VinFast Auto (VFS) reported a Q3 net loss Friday of 10,239 Vietnamese dong ($0.39) per diluted share, widening from a loss of 5,656 dong a year earlier. The company's shares were down 5% in recent premarket activity.
Shares of Azenta Inc. (AZTA) surged 12% in pre-market trading on Friday following the release of its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2025 results, which exceeded analyst expectations and provided an optimistic outlook for the coming year.
Market News
Foxconn-Nvidia $1.4 billion Taiwan supercomputing cluster to be ready by H1 2026, Foxconn says
Foxconn 2317.TW said on Friday that a $1.4 billion supercomputing centre it is building with Nvidia NVDA.O will be ready by the first half of 2026, and when complete will be Taiwan's largest advanced GPU cluster.
The 27-megawatt data centre will be powered by Nvidia's new Blackwell GB300 chips and is also set to be Asia's first GB300 AI data centre, said Neo Yao, CEO of a new unit Foxconn has established for AI supercomputing and cloud operations called Visonbay.ai.
Google aims to dodge breakup of ad business as antitrust trial wraps
Alphabet's Google will make its final plea to avoid a breakup of its advertising technology business in a U.S. court on Friday, as the Department of Justice's antitrust case draws to a close.
Google has so far come away largely unscathed from a bipartisan government legal crackdown on the dominance of Big Tech - a push that began during the first term of President Donald Trump.
