Investing.com – U.S. futures rallied on Friday as news of trade talks between Beijing and Washington helped lift investor sentiment after lowered revenue forecasts from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rattled markets in the prior session.
The S&P 500 futures rose 35 points or 1.46% as of 6:40 AM ET (11:40 GMT) while Dow futures gained 307 points, or 1.36%. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures increased 113 points, or 1.84%.
China announced that trade talks would be held on Jan. 7-8, lifting investor sentiment after markets closed in the red on Thursday.
"We're not expecting a major breakthrough on Jan. 7-8; that said, where equity markets are in terms of valuations ... there’s room for markets to be positively surprised," said Edward Park, deputy chief investment officer at Brooks Macdonald.
Technology stocks were among the top gainers in premarket trading, with Apple up 1.6%, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) gaining 3.2% and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) increasing 2.1%.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) rose 2.5%, while General Electric (NYSE:GE) rallied 1.7% and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) jumped 2.8%.
Elsewhere, Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) fell 0.5%, while eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) decreased 0.4%.
On the central banking front, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to speak at 10:15 AM ET (15:15 GMT). While he is not expected to provide a shift from prior statements, investors will listen closely for any clarification on monetary policy.
In economic news, the employment report comes out with 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT).
In commodities, gold futures decreased 0.1% to $1,293.55 a troy ounce, while crude oil jumped 2.19% to $48.12 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slipped 0.14% to 95.74.
-Reuters contributed to this report.