US pre-open: Futures mixed following worst sell-off since October
Wall Street futures were mixed ahead of the bell on Thursday following a heavy sell-off in the previous session.
As of 1215 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.07%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.17% and 0.76% lower, respectively.
The Dow closed 633.87 points lower on Wednesday, its worst day since October.
Earnings from Facebook, which beat on top and bottom lines in its fourth-quarter earnings overnight but cautioned that a reversal in Covid-19 pandemic trends would likely impact its advertising business, were in focus, as were worse-than-expected quarterly numbers from electric carmaker Tesla.
Apple also turned in its largest quarterly revenue performance in history overnight, bringing in $111.4bn and video game retailer GameStop's stock continued its vertiginous rise, hitting a 52-week high of $354.83.
Turning to Thursday's earnings slate, Mastercard, American Airlines and McDonald's will all report before the open, while Visa and Western Digital were both scheduled to report after the close.
Also in focus were comments from the Federal Reserve, which made it clear it was content on maintaining existing monetary policy. However, sentiment was still taking a hit even though the central bank vowed to continue supporting the economy.
On the macro front, fourth-quarter gross domestic product figures, an advance reading of last month's goods trade balance and weekly jobless claims data will be released at 1330 GMT, while new homes sales for December and last month's Conference Board leading index were slated for publication at 1500 GMT.