US stock futures rise after tech stir-up in Wall Street

U.S. stock futures rose on Wednesday after a brutal two-day selloff pushed the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the red for the year.

Apple Inc and other technology and internet giants, which lost a combined $1 trillion of their market value on Tuesday, posted modest gains in premarket trading ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Oil prices also steadied after slumping about 6 per cent.

Worries about slowing global growth and peaking corporate earnings have sapped risk appetite in recent months, throwing into doubt the longevity of the decade-old bull run for stocks.

The Nasdaq closed at its lowest in over seven months on Tuesday, while the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow lost more than 1 per cent for the year after technology stocks continued to tumble and a bunch of disappointing retail earnings and forecasts soured the mood.

The pressure on technology stocks appeared to have eased on Wednesday, with shares in Apple, Amazon.com Inc, Netflix Inc and Alphabet Inc gaining between 0.64 per cent and 1.87 per cent.

Foot Locker Inc shares surged 14.8 per cent after the footwear retailer's third-quarter comparable sales trumped expectations. The company said its footwear unit posted its first comparable gain in six quarters.

Shares of Nike Inc rose 1.2 per cent in response.

At 7:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 130 points, or 0.53 per cent. S&P 500 e-minis were up 17 points, or 0.64 per cent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 57.5 points, or 0.88 per cent.

Shares of Apple Inc rose 0.6 per cent. The iPhone maker's shares have lost more than 20 per cent from their record closing high on Oct. 3 due to concerns over waning iPhone demand.

The Philadelphia SE semiconductor index, which has underperformed the S&P 500 for the year, was poised to gain, with Advanced Micro Devices Inc up 2.7 per cent, Nvidia Corp gaining 4.0 per cent and Micron Technology Inc rising 1.2 per cent.

Among other early movers, Deere & Co fell 4.0 per cent, after reporting quarterly earnings below Wall Street's expectations, hurt by a slowdown in demand.