Investing.com – U.S. futures were mixed early Thursday, with Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) leading technology stocks after strong earnings that defied last year’s privacy scandals.
The social media giant was up 11.38% in premarket trading after it reported better-than-expected figures on Wednesday, despite being plagued with scandals and calls to boycott it over privacy and other ethical concerns.
The S&P 500 futures rose 3 points or 0.13% as of 6:40 AM ET (11:40 GMT) while Dow futures lost 2 points, or 0.01%. Meanwhile tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures increased 29 points, or 0.44%.
Earnings season will be at its busiest on Thursday, with results from Hershey (NYSE:HSY), Sprint (NYSE:S) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), among others.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 0.45%, while Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDSa) jumped 4.74% after its full-year profit surged to a four-year high. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) increased 0.39% and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) gained 0.69%.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) jumped 2.8% after its revenue beat expectations.
Elsewhere, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) fell 2.12% after it issued mixed earnings, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slumped 4.75% after it announced its chief financial officer is leaving.
Investors will likely keep an eye on weekly jobless claims due at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT), especially after the Federal Reserve signaled a pause on interest rate hikes due to concerns of a global economic slowdown.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.92% to $1,322.00 a troy ounce, while crude oil was flat at 0.22% to $54.24 a barrel, holding on to gains after a smaller-than-expected rise in U.S. crude inventories last week.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was flat at 95.03.