Nasdaq futures jumped more than 1% on Thursday, led by a surge in Nvidia after a blowout forecast, while talks on raising the U.S. debt ceiling showed some signs of progress.
Shares of Nvidia Corp, the world's most valuable listed chip company, jumped 24% in premarket trading. The company is Wall Street's fifth-most valuable firm.
The chipmaker forecast current-quarter revenue more than 50% above Wall Street estimates and said it was ramping up supply to meet surging demand for its artificial-intelligence chips used to power ChatGPT and many similar services.
This helped it lead a rally among heavyweight AI players including Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc, which rose 1.9% and 2.0%, respectively.
Other semiconductor companies including Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Micron Technology Inc and Broadcom Inc also rose between 1.9% and 8.9%.
Intel Corp, which has little AI exposure, fell 0.7%.
Wall Street's main indexes have seen big declines in the last two sessions and are now eying their worst week in more than two months as investors await clarity on whether lawmakers will strike a deal to raise the nation's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling or risk a calamitous default.
Representatives for Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy held what both sides called productive talks on Wednesday to try to reach a deal as the June 1 deadline loomed.
Reflecting the market uncertainty, yields on U.S. Treasury bills maturing in early June rose above 7%.
Two-year yields hit their highest since March as ratings agency Fitch put the United States on credit watch for a possible downgrade.
At 4:53 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 77 points, or 0.23%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 23.25 points, or 0.56%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 226.5 points, or 1.66%.
(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
