Dow futures tick higher, earnings in focus

By Oliver Gray

Investing.com – U.S. stock futures were trading slightly higher during Sunday’s evening trade, after major indices capped a positive week as easing and pressures boosted sentiment ahead of a critical earnings season.

By 7:00pm ET (11:00pm GMT) and were up 0.2% apiece while gained 0.1%.

Ahead in the week, traders will be looking towards , , , , , preliminary and PMI readings as well as speeches from FOMC members , , and .

Meanwhile, earnings season is set to heat up with major companies including Charles Schwab Corp (NYSE:), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:), Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:), Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:), United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:), Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) and International Business Machines (NYSE:).

During Friday’s trade, the dipped 143.2 points or 0.4% to 33,886.5, the lost 8.6 points or 0.2% to 4,137.6 and the lost 42.8 points or 0.4% to 12,123.5.

Financial giants outperformed following stronger than expected earnings, with JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:) adding 7.6%.

On the data front, disappointed, coming in at -1% versus -0.4% expected, while surprised to the upside, coming in at 0.4% versus 0.2% expected.

For the week, the Dow and the S&P 500 advanced 1.4% and 1.3% respectively, each finishing at 8-week highs while posting the 5th week of consecutive gains. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ added 1.2% for the week.

On the bond markets, rates were at 3.517%.