Wall Street pointed higher early Friday as more strong earnings results trickled in along with a closely-watched report from the U.S. government showing that inflation ticked higher.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.4% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%. Nasdaq futures climbed 0.7%.
Exxon Mobil shares ticked up less than 1% after the energy giant posted strong fourth quarter profits that beat Wall Street's forecast. Exxon credited increased production in the U.S. Permian basin and in Guyana for the strong results, even though revenue came in lower than expected.
Apple hit both sales and profit targets when it reported its latest results after the bell on Thursday and its shares rose 4.2% overnight. Investors were pleased with the iPhone maker's revenue forecast, which called for sales to at least match or exceed analyst projections for the January-March quarter.
Walgreens Boots Alliance tumbled 12% after it announced that it was suspending its quarterly dividend. The news comes after the struggling pharmacy chain said this fall that it was closing about 1,200 locations.
Friday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.6% in December from a year earlier, up from a 2.4% annual pace in November and the third straight increase. That measure of inflation is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve. The Fed is still working to get inflation down to its target level of 2%, deciding earlier this week to leave its benchmark borrowing rate alone.
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE 100 each rose 0.3%, while France’s CAC 40 rose 0.4%.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.2% higher to 39,572.49.
Japan's core inflation rate, a key indicator of national trends, rose to 2.5% in January, surpassing the central bank’s 2% target and paving the way for further interest rate hikes. Meanwhile, Japan’s unemployment rate for December declined to 2.4% from 2.5% in the previous month.
The Kospi in South Korea fell 0.8% to 2,517.37 as trading resumed on Friday after the holidays, during which Chinese startup DeepSeek stirred panic in the AI world. Shares of SK Hynix, a major supplier to Nvidia Corp., plummeted by 9.9%. Another tech giant, Samsung, lost 2.4%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.5% to 8,532.30. In Bangkok, the SET was down 1.6%.
Markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai remain closed for the lunar new year holidays.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 12 cents to $72.85 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 6 cents to $75.95 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 154.86 Japanese yen from 154.18 yen. The euro cost $1.0394, up slightly from $1.0392.
