U.S. stock index futures ticked up on Friday, while investors awaited consumer sentiment data due later in the day for fresh insights into the economy.

Market Snapshot

At 08:08 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 73 points, or 0.16%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 9.5 point, or 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 39 points, or 0.15%.

Pre-Market Movers

Nvidia rose 0.6% to $193.80 after shares of the leading maker of chips for artificial-intelligence applications gained 1.8% on Thursday to close at $192.57, an all-time high. Cantor Fitzgerald analysts on Thursday raised their price target on Nvidia to $300 from $240 and maintained an Overweight rating on the stock, saying the buildout for AI has only started. The firm's $300 price target translates to a $7 trillion market cap for Nvidia, which closed Thursday with a market cap of $4.678 trillion. Coming into Friday, Nvidia shares have risen more than 43% this year.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported the U.S. has approved several billion dollars' worth of Nvidia chip exports to American customers including Oracle for use in the United Arab Emirates.

Fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue at Levi Strauss & Co topped analysts' estimates and the jeans maker raised its fiscal-year outlook. Levi Strauss expects fiscal-year revenue to rise 3%, higher than previous guidance that called for an increase of 1% to 2%. The company also boosted its adjusted earnings forecast to $1.27 to $1.32 a share from $1.25 to $1.30. Shares of Levi Strauss, however, fell 6%.

Venture Global, Inc. tumbled 19%. The U.S. natural-gas exporter lost an arbitration case against customer BP. Venture Global said the International Court of Arbitration issued a partial final award to BP. The British oil company and several other customers accused Venture Global of withholding contracted liquefied natural gas cargoes, and instead selling them on the spot market to benefit from a surge in prices that was driven by the war in Ukraine.

Qualcomm declined 1.3% as China launched an investigation into the chip company for suspected violations of the country's antimonopoly law, said China's State Administration for Market Regulation. The investigation involves the takeover of Israeli start-up Autotalks, which Qualcomm acquired in June.

Vertiv Holdings LLC , the maker of AI infrastructure products that cool and power data centers, rose 3.3% in premarket trading. Shares closed 0.9% higher in the previous session, bringing gains this year to 49%. The move came after Citi analysts on Thursday put a bullish 90-day catalyst watch on Vertiv, citing "increased conviction on robust data center infrastructure demand."

Applied Digital reported a fiscal first-quarter adjusted loss of 3 cents a share, narrower than analysts' estimates that called for a loss of 13 cents. Revenue of $64.2 million beat forecasts of $46.1 million. The company also finalized a new lease agreement with CoreWeave. Shares of Applied Digital, the operator of artificial-intelligence data centers, soared 29%.

Data-analytics company Elastic N.V. jumped 11% after hiking its revenue guidance and announcing a $500 million stock buyback. Elastic expects fiscal 2026 revenue of between $1.697 billion and $1.703 billion, up from a previous call of between $1.679 billion and $1.689 billion.

Amcor plc rose 3% after the packaging solutions company named Stephen Scherger as chief financial officer, following Michael Casamento's decision to return to Australia. The company also reaffirmed fiscal 2026 guidance for adjusted earnings of between 80 cents and 83 cents a share, representing 12% to 17% constant currency growth.

Market News

Fed Governor Waller sees more rate cuts but says central bank needs to be ‘cautious about it’

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Friday that he continues to support lowering interest rates but said the central bank needs to be careful amid conflicting economic signals.

「I’m still in the belief we need to cut rates, but we need to kind of be cautious about it,」 Waller said during an interview on CNBC’s 「Squawk Box.」

Fed's Williams sees rate cuts ahead, Barr calls for caution

With three weeks until the U.S. central bank's next policy meeting, the influential New York Federal Reserve President John Williams signaled on Thursday he would be comfortable with cutting interest rates again, despite some policymakers' qualms about rising inflation that suggest such a decision won't be easily made.

"The risk of a further slowdown in the labor market is something I'm very focused on," Williams told the New York Times in an interview conducted on Wednesday and published a day later. He also said he felt President Donald Trump's trade tariffs were not putting as much upward pressure on inflation as many observers had expected, and he didn't see signs of any added boost ahead.

In his first speech on monetary policy since June, Fed Governor Michael Barr on Thursday leaned heavily into the risks of inflation, even as he acknowledged the potential vulnerabilities in a "roughly balanced" labor market.

"The FOMC should be cautious about adjusting policy so that we can gather further data, update our forecasts, and better assess the balance of risks," Barr said, referring to the central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.