By George Glover

Stock futures were struggling for direction Thursday with investors in wait-and-see mode ahead of the release Friday of the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge.

These stocks were poised to make moves Thursday:

Salesforce rose 0.7% ahead of the opening bell after the software company topped analysts' third-quarter earnings estimates but fell a little short on revenue. Guidance for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year was very strong, and the company also highlighted its artificial-intelligence efforts. Annual recurring revenue from agentic AI products -- programs that have the ability to take simple directions and complete multistep tasks -- climbed to $540 million, up $100 million from a quarter earlier.

Snowflake dropped 8.7% in premarket trading after the cloud storage company posted a third-quarter earnings beat that was overshadowed by slowing product-revenue growth. The stock may well have been priced for perfection -- it was up 72% for the year as of Wednesday's close, meaning there was a high bar for Snowflake to clear.

UiPath jumped 8.8% after the automation software maker beat Wall Street's third-quarter earnings and revenue estimates and guided for stronger-than-expected revenue for the current quarter. The "solid execution" is a sign that UiPath is well-positioned for the rise in demand for AI at large organizations, William Blair analyst Jake Roberge said in a research note.

C3.ai fell 1.4% after the AI company reported that revenue for its second quarter fell 20% from a year earlier, which overshadowed a narrower-than-expected loss for the period. The stock has taken a battering this year, tumbling 56% amid concerns about the sharp drop in sales.

Guidewire Software added 3.4% after the software company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for its fisca first quarter.

NCino advanced 8.2% after the fintech beat analysts' estimates for third-quarter earnings and revenue and issued stronger-than-expected guidance for the current fourth quarter.

Alaska Air slid 0.9% after the carrier cut its earnings outlook for the fourth quarter to 10 cents a share from 40 cents, which it blamed partly on a recent internal IT outage.

Distillery owner Brown-Forman, discount-store chain Dollar General, food processing company Hormel Foods, supermarket operator Kroger, and IT company Hewlett Packard Enterprise are scheduled to report earnings on Thursday.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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December 04, 2025 05:54 ET (10:54 GMT)

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