Stock Futures rise as upbeat earnings boost risk appetite

New York(Oct 19)  Large-cap technology and communications companies including Facebook Inc (FB.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) all rose between 0.3% and 0.7%. Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) rose 0.1% ahead of its quarterly results later in the day.

After forecast-beating results from big banks last week set a positive tone for this earnings season, investors now turn to results from companies that are more exposed to supply chain constraints, price rises and labor shortages.

Travelers Cos Inc (TRV.N) rose 2.7% after the property and casualty insurer beat estimates for third-quarter profit. read more

The S&P 500 index (.SPX) is 1.3% away from a record-high hit in early September, as investors now hope that a continuous flow of better-than-expected earnings reports could push the market to new highs.

"Should we have another solid week of results, this may inject S&P 500 bulls with enough confidence to venture into uncharted territory beyond its all-time high," wrote Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM in a client note.

Analysts now expect S&P 500 earnings to show a 32% rise from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.

At 6:51 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 147 points, or 0.42%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 20 points, or 0.45%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 51.5 points, or 0.34%.

Reuters