US stock futures rose Thursday following a report from The Wall Street Journal that said President Donald Trump was toying with the idea of naming a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in September or October, fueling bets the central bank could cut interest rates sooner than expected.
These stocks were poised to make moves Thursday:
Nvidia was up 1.2% in the premarket session after the leading maker of artificial-intelligence chips rose 4.3% Wednesday and closed at a record high of $154.31. It finished Wednesday as the most valuable U.S. company with a market capitalization of $3.765 trillion, higher than Microsoft's $3.659 trillion. Coming into Thursday, Nvidia shares have risen almost 15% this year.
Micron Technology, the memory-chip maker, gained 2.4% after reporting fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings that easily topped Wall Street estimates as revenue rose 37% to $9.3 billion and exceeded expectations. Revenue from high-bandwidth memory, which is used in AI systems, jumped nearly 50% quarter over quarter. "Data center revenue more than doubled year-over-year and reached a quarterly record, and consumer-oriented end markets had strong sequential growth," said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. Micron forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $10.4 billion to $11 billion, better than estimates of $9.9 billion.
Tesla rose 0.3%. The electric-vehicle company fell 3.8% on Wednesday after Tesla sold 13,863 cars in Europe in May, down 28% from a year earlier, while overall EV sales in the region jumped 25%.
Shares of Coinbase Global, the cryptocurrency exchange, were up 1% after rising 3.1% on Wednesday to $355.37, the stock's highest close since Nov. 9, 2021, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Entering Thursday's session, Coinbase has risen 44% in June, putting it on pace for its best month since November 2024. The company has benefited from Senate passage of the Genius Act, a bill clarifying how stablecoins are regulated.
U.S.-listed shares of BP were down 0.7% after The Wall Street Journal reported Shell was in early stage talks to acquire its oil company rival. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said BP was "considering the approach carefully" and talks were progressing slowly. A Shell spokeswoman told Barron's that no talks were taking place, saying it was "further market speculation." Shell's American depositary receipts rose 2%.
Investment-banking company Jefferies Financial reported fiscal second-quarter earnings that fell from a year earlier and missed analysts' estimates. Jefferies said net revenue in the period of $1.63 billion reflects "a resilient full-service investment banking and capital markets business against a backdrop of significant uncertainty related to U.S. policy and geopolitical events which meaningfully slowed activity levels for the first two months of the quarter." Shares fell 2.5% in after-hours trading Wednesday.
H.B. Fuller jumped 5.9% following quarterly adjusted earnings that topped analysts' estimates and as the maker of adhesives and other industrial products raised its fiscal-year outlook.
Worthington Steel rose 14.1%. The company posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $1.10 a share on sales of $832.9 million. A year earlier, Worthington Steel reported profit of $1.06 a share on sales of $911 million.
Earnings reports are expected Thursday from Nike, McCormick, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Acuity, and Concentrix.
Nike rose 0.6% ahead of fiscal fourth-quarter earnings scheduled for after the closing bell Thursday from the sports-apparel company. Analysts expect earnings to likely have taken a beating from drastic measures that new CEO Elliott Hill has been taking to turn around the sneaker maker.
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