Stock futures slip as traders weigh latest batch of corporate earnings

Stock futures fell Friday as investors assessed more corporate earnings reports and higher U.S. bond yields.

Futures for the Nasdaq 100 slipped 0.9%, while futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 133 points, or 0.4%. S&P 500 futures dropped 0.5%.

Those moves came Snap reported a quarterly revenue of $1.13 billion, below expectations. That revenue represents year-over-year growth of just 6%. Average revenue per user, a key metric for the company, fell 11% to $3.11.

“The mindset is quite gloomy w/stocks for sale pretty much everywhere. The culprit behind the negativity is earnings w/a slew of disappointments around the world,” wrote Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

Meta Platforms shares fell nearly 4% in the premarket, while Alphabet dipped 1.8%.

Those moves come after the indexes fell for a second day, with the Dow shedding 90.22 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were down 0.8% and and 0.6%, respectively.

It was a day that started on better footing for the Dow, which was up nearly 400 points at session highs, but rising Treasury yields threw cold water on stocks. The 10-year Treasury yield is trading at levels not seen since 2008. On Friday, it traded around 4.26%.

Thursday’s trading fits a broader picture of jittery investors making knee-jerk decisions based on the news of the day, said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group. He said investors are increasingly moving into shorter-term strategies as they see the Federal Reserve creating a volatile market as it seeks to bring down inflation through interest rate hikes.

“Markets look for every sign that the inflation data is moving in such a way that the Fed can reduce its pace of interest rates, and are basically ignoring speakers and governors, and basically ignoring everything the Fed to say,” Cox said.

“It lends itself to very, very choppy trading because people are trigger happy and just waiting for the signal that the pause is coming,” he said. “It’s a bad way to trade and it brings lots of volatility.”

The major averages are still on track for a winning week, up more than 2% through Thursday.