US stock futures signal slight recovery as Morgan Stanley helps avoid global concern

Shares of Morgan Stanley rose 2.1 per cent premarket after reporting a 19 per cent increase in quarterly profit, with a strong performance in its equities trading business outweighing weakness in bond trading.

U.S. stock futures signalled a slight recovery on Tuesday, as upbeat earnings reports from Morgan Stanley and UnitedHealth among others helped ease jitters over the impact of various global issues on corporate profits.

Shares of Morgan Stanley rose 2.1 per cent premarket after reporting a 19 per cent increase in quarterly profit, with a strong performance in its equities trading business outweighing weakness in bond trading.

Goldman Sachs, which will release results shortly to wrap up earnings from the top six U.S. banks, was up 0.7 per cent.

UnitedHealth rose 2 per cent in light premarket volumes after the insurer delivered a quarterly profit beat and boosted earnings forecast for the year as it added more members to its health plans.

In what could be a lift for the recently turbulent technology sector, Adobe climbed 5.5 per cent after the software company reaffirmed its current-quarter forecast and provided 2019 targets that eased concerns over the impact of a recent acquisition.

One dampener was Walmart, which dropped 0.7 per cent after lowering its earnings forecast for the year to include the impact from its acquisition of Indian e-commerce company Flipkart.

The reports from some of the biggest U.S. companies would help soothe nerves of investors who have been fretting over the impact of tariffs, rising interest rates, wage growth and other factors on corporate profits.

Still, earnings at S&P 500 companies are expected to have risen 21.6 per cent in the third quarter, a slowdown from the past two quarters, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv.

At 7:15 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 119 points, or 0.47 per cent. S&P 500 e-minis was up 12.25 points, or 0.45 per cent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 47 points, or 0.66 per cent.

Johnson & Johnson edged 0.5 per cent higher after beating quarterly estimates and raising its forecast, as demand for cancer drugs Zytiga and Darzalex helped offset falling sales of blockbuster arthritis drug Remicade.

Netflix was 0.8 per cent ahead of its earnings report, expected after market close. The video streaming company will be the first to issues results among the FAANG group of stocks, which have at the centre of last week's selloff.

At 9:15 a.m. ET/1:15 p.m. GMT, industrial production data from the Federal Reserve is likely to show production rose 0.2 per cent in September, lower than its August reading of 0.4 per cent rise.