US Stock Futures Surge After Upbeat Apple Earnings - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Pre-open movers

US stock futures gained in early pre-market trade, after stronger-than-expected results from Facebook

and Apple

AAPL

. Investors are also awaiting earnings from General Motors Company

, Microsoft

MSFT

, 3M Co

MMM

and Caterpillar

CAT

. Data on weekly jobless claims and durable goods orders for March will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while the Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for April will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 42 points to 16,502.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 7.70 points to 1,880.60. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index jumped 53 points to 3,607.50.

A Peek Into Global Markets

European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 0.63%, London's FTSE 100 index surging 0.68% and STOXX Europe 600 Index gaining 0.70%. German DAX 30 index jumped 0.85% and French CAC 40 Index climbed 1.05%. French business sentiment slipped to 100 in April versus 101 in March. Asian markets ended mostly lower today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.97%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.24% and China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.50%. South Korea's GDP climbed 0.9% on the quarter in the first quarter. China's foreign-services trade deficit widened to 60.9 billion yuan ($9.9 billion) in March.

Broker Recommendation

Analysts at Bank of America upgraded Republic Airways Holdings

RJET

from “underperform” to “neutral.” The target price for Republic Airways is set to $10. Republic Airways' shares closed at $8.23 yesterday.

Breaking news

Time Warner Cable TWC posted a 19.5% gain in its first-quarter profit. Time Warner Cable's quarterly net income surged to $479 million, or $1.70 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $401 million, or $1.34 per share. To read the full news, click here.
Alexion Pharmaceuticals ALXN today announced the initiation of a single, multinational, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of eculizumab (Soliris®) in patients with relapsing neuromyelitis optica (NMO), a life-threatening, ultra-rare neurologic disorder. To read the full news, click here.
On Wednesday, Apple AAPL reported second quarter results which significantly beat analyst estimates. The company reported earnings per share of $11.62 versus $10.17 analyst estimates. Revenue came in at $45.65 billion versus $43.55 billion analyst estimates. Revenues were up 4.7 percent from $43.6 billion a year ago. To read the full news, click here.
Novadaq® Technologies NVDQ announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of Aimago SA. To read the full news, click here.

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