Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a flat open on Friday as investors weighed the possibility of a “major conflict” with North Korea and poured through mixed earnings as they looked ahead to the publication of U.S. growth domestic product (GDP).
The blue-chip Dow futures was unchanged, at 6:57AM ET (10:57GMT), the S&P 500 futures edged forward 2 points, or 0.06%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 3 points, or 0.05%.
The U.S. is to release preliminary figures on first quarter economic growth at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT) Friday.
According to consensus, the data is expected to show that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1.2% in the first three months of 2017, easing from growth of 2.1% in the fourth quarter.
However, two regional Fed banks strongly disagree over first quarter growth with Atlanta expecting an anemic increase of just 0.2% while New York forecast a 2.7% expansion.
Also on the economic front, the Chicago PMI for April will be released at 9:45AM ET (13:45GMT) and the University of Michigan will release its revised consumer sentiment for April at 10:00AM ET (14:00GMT).
Market participants were also cautious as U.S. President Donald Trump said that a "major, major" conflict with North Korea is possible but he is looking for a diplomatic answer.
On the company front, earnings had passed the halfway mark with 54% of S&P 500 firms having already reported earnings for the first quarter period.
Of 76% of these companies have beat earnings-per-share (EPS) estimates while 69% have topped consensus on sales, according to The Earnings Scout.
While the season has been rolling well, these experts warned that profit growth of 12% to 14% in the first quarter would be a peak.
For Friday’s session, investors will keep eyes on earnings from the likes of Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL) or Goodyear Tire & Rubber (NASDAQ:GT) out before the open.
After Thursday’s close, Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s profit rose 29% on strong ad sales sending shares around 4% higher in after hours.
Shares in Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) were gaining more than 3% in pre-market trade Friday on the back of soaring retail and cloud-computing sales.
Not all tech earnings were positive and shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) slipped around 0.5% after a slight miss on revenues.
In a large downward move, shares of Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) tumbled 5% in pre-market trade as the coffee shop multinational also missed on sales.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose on Friday but were still on track for a second straight weekly loss on concerns that an OPEC-led production cut has failed to significantly tighten an oversupplied market.
In that light, investors looked ahead to data on U.S. drilling activity out later on Friday.
Last week, Baker Hughes reported that rigs were added for the 14th week in a row, extending a 10-month drilling recovery. That brought the total count to 688, the most since September 2015.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.84% to $49.38 by 6:58AM ET (10:58GMT), while Brent oil rose 0.85% to $52.26.