By Joe Woelfel and Elsa Ohlen

Stock futures traded flat Thursday as moves toward peace in the Middle East removed a key geopolitical worry for markets, and investors awaited the kickoff of earnings season with reports from PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines.

These stocks were poised to make moves Thursday:

Advanced Micro Devices rose 0.9% in premarket trading after the chip maker finished up 11% Wednesday at $235.56, a record high. Shares of AMD have jumped more than 43% over a three-session winning streak, boosted by a deal with OpenAI to power 6 gigawatts of AI infrastructure with its graphics processing units and with OpenAI receiving a warrant to buy up to 160 million AMD shares.

Dell Technologies fell 0.6%. Shares of the maker of computers and artificial-intelligence servers closed up 9.1% on Wednesday to a 52-week high of $164.53, extending gains from the day before when the stock rose 3.5% after Dell boosted its long-term financial targets, citing strong AI demand. Dell shares have risen for three consecutive days, gaining 16.9% over the span, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Jefferies Financial rose 1% after shares dropped 7.9% Wednesday. The company disclosed it could take a multimillion-dollar hit from bankrupt auto parts supplier First Brands. Jefferies said that one of its asset management units had invested about $715 million in assets tied to First Brands -- about a quarter of its trade finance portfolio.

Costco Wholesale gained 1.6% after the membership warehouse retailer reported sales rose 8% to $26.6 billion in the five weeks ended Oct. 5. Comparable-store sales rose 5.7% overall, with U.S. sales up 5.1%. Costco said digitally-enabled comparable sales, previously referred to as e-commerce sales, rose 26%.

Freeport-McMoRan rose 2.9% and was on track to build on a 5.3% gain in the previous session. The move came after two Wall Street analysts issued positive calls on shares of the copper miner. Citi upgraded the stock to Buy and Well Fargo initiated coverage with a Buy-rating, both citing expectations of rallying copper prices.

Coinbase Global dropped 1.5% in premarket trading as the price of Bitcoin slipped further from record highs earlier this week. Shares of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform, tend to react to fluctuations in crypto prices and sentiment. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $126,064 on Monday, according to CoinDesk, but has fallen about 3% since then. Coming into Thursday, Coinbase stock has risen 56% this year and has closed higher in eight out of the past nine trading sessions.

AZZ Inc., the metal coatings and welding services company, fell 6.1% after reporting second-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that were below analysts' estimates. AZZ reiterated fiscal-year guidance for adjusted earnings per share of $6 on sales of $1.675 billion at the midpoint.

Earnings reports are expected Thursday from Delta Air Lines, PepsiCo, Levi Strauss, Applied Digital, and Neogen.

Shares of Delta rose 1.4% in premarket trading ahead of third-quarter earnings from the carrier. Wall Street expects Delta to report adjusted earnings of $1.52 a share on revenue of $15.1 billion. Investors also will be paying close attention to changes to Delta's full-year outlook.

PepsiCo rose 0.7%. The beverages and snacks company is expected by analysts to post third-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.26 a share, down 5 cents from a year earlier. Net sales were forecast to increase 2.2% from a year earlier to $23.8 billion. A focus for Wall Street will be signs of improving sales trends in North America as well as updates from PepsiCo about its engagement with activist investor Elliott Investment Management.

Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 09, 2025 05:59 ET (09:59 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.