Futures tied to the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 climbed Wednesday after Netflix reported its subscriber count reached a new record in the fourth quarter.
Nasdaq 100 futures
rose 0.9%, while S&P 500 futures
gained 0.5%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
advanced 141 points, or 0.4%.
Netflix
shares surged more than 10% in premarket trading. The leg up came after the streamer said it added more than 13 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, bringing its total subscriber count to an all-time high of 260.8 million. Revenue topped analysts’ estimates, as did current-quarter earnings guidance.
Netflix’s subscriber increase “indicates the ongoing strength in the scaling of the ad-tier business, particularly scaling up at the end of last year, and also the momentum the company’s building and its crackdown on password sharing,” Jamie Lumley, senior analyst at Third Bridge Group, said on “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Tuesday.
The streaming giant’s gains build upon mega-cap tech’s strong gains in 2024, which have propelled the S&P 500
to record highs and confirmed a new bull market.
Beyond Netflix, AT&T
slipped more than 2% on lower-than-expected earnings. Dupont De Nemours
tumbled more than 11% after preannouncing weak fourth-quarter results and issuing disappointing first-quarter guidance.
Those moves come after the Dow
pulled back 0.25% during Tuesday’s main trading session as investors tracked disappointing earnings reports and guidance from several blue-chip companies. Still, the S&P 500 gained 0.29% to reach an all-time closing high. The Nasdaq Composite
added 0.43%.
Earnings reports will remain a focus of traders on Tuesday, with Tesla
, Las Vegas Sands
and IBM
due after the bell. Of the more than 15% of S&P 500 companies that have reported quarterly financials thus far in the earnings season, over 70% have surpasses Wall Street expectations, according to FactSet.
On the economic front, traders will be looking toward data on fourth quarter gross domestic product and the closely watched personal consumption expenditures price index expected later in the week.