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US stock futures slipped on Friday following two straight days of gains as President Trump turned down the heat in his pursuit of US sovereignty in Greenland.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) edged down 0.2%, while those on the S&P 500 (ES=F) ticked 0.2% lower. Contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) shed 0.4%.
Intel’s (INTC) late Thursday earnings dampened appetite for techs, as the chipmaking giant posted a worse-than-expected outlook and swung to a quarterly loss. The company struggled to meet demand for its server chips used in AI data centers, casting doubt on its turnaround bid. Shares sank over 10% before the bell.
Earlier in the day, stocks climbed for a second consecutive session as investors grew more comfortable due to Trump cooling his rhetoric over acquiring Greenland. The Dow (^DJI), S&P 500 (^GSPC), and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) all posted significant gains.
The rally gained momentum Wednesday after Trump reversed course on proposed tariffs targeting imports from eight European countries that had been scheduled to take effect Feb. 1. The move followed Trump’s announcement of what he described as a “framework” agreement involving Greenland, reached alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Against that backdrop, gold (GC=F) pushed over $4,900 for the first time on record and continued to make gains on Friday. Goldman Sachs (GS) expects further gains as haven demand persists, forecasting prices at $5,400 by the end of this year.
This week’s rebound helped the Dow recover losses posted earlier in the week, leaving the index just higher for the week. Still, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite remain on pace for their second straight weekly declines, down 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.
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Premarket trending tickers: Capital One, Intuitive Surgical, and Coupang
Capital One (COF) stock fell 3% before the bell on Friday. The group released its fourth-quarter results and announced it would acquire startup company Brex for $5.15 billion.
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) stock rose 3% during premarket hours on Friday after beating Wall Street estimates for its fourth quarter revenue and profit on Thursday. The company said it has had growing demand for its surgical robots used in minimally invasive procedures.
South Korea’s largest e-commerce group, Coupang (CPNG), stock climbed higher on Friday by 3% after receiving an upgrade from Deutsche Bank (DB) to Buy from Hold. Coupang suffered a cyberattack late last year, leaving investors to seek a US probe over South Korea’s handling of the data leak.
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‘Quiet-quitting’ of US assets fuels boom in bets from EM stocks to gold
Emerging-market stocks, currencies and precious metals are extending a storming start to 2026 as tensions between the US and Europe weigh on the dollar. The rally gathered pace Friday, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index heading for a fifth successive week of gains, its longest winning streak since May.
Bloomberg reports:
Investors are pouring cash into emerging-market funds at a record pace as momentum builds for a rotation out of US holdings. It’s sent the EM stocks gauge to a record high.
While Asian technology shares drive the rally, other regions are also catching up. The benchmark for Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa has risen on all five days of this week and is on course for its best month since 2020. The MSCI EM Latin America Index of equities on Thursday closed its highest since April 2018.
The Greenland tussle — even if it has been mitigated for now — has revived questions about US exceptionalism and the role of the dollar, spurring funds from Europe to India to diversify away from Treasuries. The flow has added an impetus to an EM rally fueled by robust global growth, the AI spending boom and political shifts in Latin America, as well as fiscal and monetary policy orthodoxy in much of the developing world.
People “are looking to diversify away from US assets, and I would kind of describe it as quiet-quitting of US bonds,” TCW Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Katie Koch said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I don’t think there’s going to be a massive announcement, I just think they’re going to look for opportunities to diversify away.”
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US natural gas falls after record-breaking 3-day rally
From Bloomberg:
US natural gas futures (NG=F) pared a record breaking three-day rally, after traders finished exiting short positions and the market braced for a historic winter storm.
Front-month contracts dropped as much as 7.6% to $4.660 per million British thermal units on Friday, after surging 63% over the previous three sessions. Prices were still on track for their biggest weekly gain in records going back to 1990.
This week’s surge was driven by forecasts for below normal temperatures across most of the country, threatening to boost gas consumption and drain inventories. The freeze — particularly in the southern gas-producing states — has raised concerns about water icing in pipelines, potentially disrupting output from this weekend.
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Bloomberg reports:
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TikTok closes deal with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX for US operation
Bloomberg reports:
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