DJIA futures up 275 points (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 03 May - US futures were higher as investors cheered better-than-expected Apple earnings and braced for key jobs data.

Wall Street ended higher yesterday after the market put a positive spin on the Federal Reserve's decision to keep interest rates steady. The Dow rose 0.85%, the S&P 500 added 0.91% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed up 1.51%.

Though Fed chief Jerome Powell cited a 'lack of further progress' in bringing inflation down, he also said he did not think the next policy move would be a hike, calming growing concern that rates might actually have to increase if pricing pressure is to be rooted out.

Stubborn inflation has prompted the Fed to put back the timetable for rate cuts and prompted traders to recalculate their expectations for the number of cuts this year.

Eyes now turn to today's payrolls report which is expected to show that 238,000 jobs were created in April compared to 303,000 the previous month.

The labor market is key to the debate about when the Fed may start cutting interest rates and whether it will be able to engineer a soft landing - taming inflation without triggering a recession.

Shares in Apple meanwhile jumped more than 6% in premarket trading after the iPhone giant reported better-than expected profits for the first quarter despite sales slipping 10% and announced a bumper buyback of 110 billion dollars, the biggest buyback in US history.

Biotech Amgen surged 14% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenues while Cloudflare was down more than 13% after providing weak revenue guidance for the year.

Futures on the Dow Jones were up 275.00 points, or 0.72%, S&P 500 futures were up 16.75 points, or 0.33%, while futures on the Nasdaq were 110.00 points, or 0.62%, higher.

AAA-Sje

(RADIOCOR) 03-05-24 13:35:02 (0347) 5 NNNN