Amazon, U.S. GDP, ECB rate decision - what's moving markets
Investing.com --Amazon takes the lead as the quarterly earnings season continues, with the tech sector remaining in focus. The European Central Bank is expected to halt its rate-hiking cycle, while investors will also focus on the latest quarterly U.S. growth numbers ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting.
It was the turn of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) to take the spotlight after the close of trading on Wednesday, as the Facebook and Instagram owner beat expectations for third-quarter profit and revenue, helped by an austerity drive and a recovery in digital advertising ahead of the holiday season.
Meta's operating margin in the third quarter doubled to 40%, while revenue grew at its quickest pace in two years.
Additionally, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Meta is now moving into artificial technology, following the lead of rivals Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), adding AI would constitute Meta's biggest investment area in 2024.
However, Meta’s stock fell over 3% premarket as investors fretted over the company’s guidance for the fourth quarter revenue, with the $38.3 billion estimate coming in 1.6% below expectations.
Earnings from the important tech sector continue Thursday, with e-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) expected to report earnings per share of 58 cents on revenue of $141.5 billion, after the close.
Investors will look for signs that Amazon's aggressive expansion of same-day delivery services helped increase its third-quarter profit margin by spurring shoppers to place more frequent and bigger orders.
U.S. stock futures dropped Thursday, continuing the previous session’s selloff with earnings from a series of tech giants driving sentiment.
At 04:40 ET (08:40
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