US stock futures inched lower on Friday as investors looked ahead to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech at the annual Jackson Hole symposium later in the global session for fresh signals on the path of US interest rates. Market participants also weighed a new round of corporate earnings. Gap shares surged nearly 15% in after-hours trading after the retailer appointed a new CEO to lead its struggling Old Navy brand. By contrast, Marvell Technology and Autodesk dropped more than 7% and 5%, respectively, after delivering weaker-than-expected quarterly results.
During Thursday’s regular session, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.57%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 gained 0.2% and 0.72%, respectively. The broader move higher was driven in part by Nvidia, which rallied 8.7% after robust demand for AI computing led the world’s largest company to project a 70% increase in revenue for the next fiscal year, countering persistent worries that capital spending on AI infrastructure might be poised to slow.