Investing.com - U.S. futures rallied on Thursday, after a sharp selloff during the prior session when the Federal Reserve ruled out extensive policy easing in the coming months.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that Wednesday’s 25 basis cut on Wednesday was a small correction cut and “it’s not the beginning of a long series of cuts.”
“You would do that if you saw real economic weakness…. That’s not what we’re seeing,” he said.
Markets are still pricing in an additional cut as soon as September, but chances of a third cut are no longer assumed.
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 22 points or 0.3% by 6:42 AM ET (10:42 GMT), while Dow futures gained 62 points or 0.2% and S&P 500 futures were up 4 points or 0.2%.
Technology stocks were slightly higher in premarket trade, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rising 0.5%, and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) up 0.5%.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) gained 0.9%, while SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) surged 17.2% after it posted a second-quarter profit that was above estimates and raised its guidance for the year.
Fitbit (NYSE:FIT) plummeted 18.6% after the health and fitness device company cut its guidance for the next quarter, while Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) slumped 7.2% after its revenue came in below expectations.
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDSa) was down 4.6% after its earnings missed the consensus, while Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) fell 6.5% and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) inched down 0.1%.
On the economic front, jobless claims are released at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT), while manufacturing PMI numbers for June come out at 10 :00 AM ET (14:00 GMT).
In commodities, crude oil fell 1.4% to $57.78 a barrel. Gold futures slumped 1.3% to $1,419.25 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rallied to a two-year high of 98.623.