S&P 500 futures rise as Micron surges after earnings; Wall Street awaits key inflation reading: Live updates

U.S. stock futures rose early Thursday, boosted by a blowout Micron Technology earnings report, as traders looked ahead to the release of a key inflation reading for May.

S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.5% and 1.8%, respectively. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were flat.

Shares of Micron surged almost 15% in Wednesday’s extended trading after the chipmaker reported fiscal third-quarter results that topped analysts’ expectations. Micron also guided for current-quarter revenue of $50 billion, up from $11.3 billion a year earlier and above the $43.58 billion forecast.

Fellow semiconductor stock Qualcomm also gained 14% after raising guidance for its non-handset revenue in fiscal 2029, calling for $40 billion. That’s up from an earlier forecast of $22 billion. Other chip names, such as Sandisk, Western Digital, Lam Research, KLA and Applied Materials all rose in sympathy.

Both the broader S&P 500 and tech-dominant Nasdaq Composite fell in the day’s regular session, with the indexes respectively losing 0.10% and 0.43%. The blue-chip Dow bucked the trend, rising 182.06 points, or 0.35%.

Asia-Pacific markets closed broadly higher. South Korea’s Kospi led gains, jumping 5.42% to 8,930.30, while Japan’sNikkei 225rose 4.61% to 72,366.34. Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.68% to 8,748.70. Hong KongHang Seng Indexdeclined 1.6% in the last hour of trade, while the mainland’s CSI 300 was up 1.56% to 5,020.1.

Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, noted that the market rotation out of technology stocks in recent sessions is actually constructive for the larger equity setup this year.

“In other words, breadth expanded,” he said on CNBC’s “The Exchange” on Wednesday afternoon. “Technology is going lower, but it is rotating, and I’ve been coming on the network for a while, saying we like industrials, we like financials. To see this rotation is really a good sign … I think it’s constructive. Have a little break in June — June swoon — not overly surprising.”

On Wednesday, the White House asked Congress for $87.6 billion in supplemental spending to pay for the Iran war, among some other expenses. Congressional Democrats immediately opposed the request, which was made by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson.

On Thursday morning, investors will be watching for May’s personal consumption expenditures price index reading, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the headline index to rise 0.5% on a monthly basis, slightly higher than April’s 0.4% gain, and 4.1% on a yearly basis, again larger than April’s rise of 3.8%.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, consensus sees the core PCE gaining 0.3% month-over-month and 3.4% year-over-year. Both those estimates are higher than April’s respective core PCE readings of 0.2% monthly and 3.3% over the prior 12 months.

McCormick, Commercial Metals, Darden Restaurants and Winnebago will report earnings before Thursday’s opening bell. Traders will also watch out for the final first-quarter gross domestic product reading, readings from May’s personal income and preliminary durable goods orders indexes, as well as initial jobless claims from the week ended June 20.