Nasdaq futures rally over 1% after upbeat Microsoft, Alphabet results

Nasdaq futures rallied more than 1% on Wednesday after upbeat results from Microsoft and Alphabet dwarfed worries about the impact of rising interest rates on the U.S. economy.

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) climbed 7.5% after it beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly results, and said that artificial intelligence products were stimulating sales.

Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) rose 1.0% after the Google parent said it would buy back $70 billion in stock and topped first-quarter profit and revenue estimates on strong demand for cloud services and ad sales.

Wall Street’s major averages suffered their deepest declines so far this month on Tuesday as a downbeat UPS (UPS.N) forecast exacerbated investor concerns about a slowing U.S. economy while plunging deposits at First Republic Bank (FRC.N) added to jitters about the bank sector’s health.

Of the 124 S&P 500 companies that reported first-quarter profit through Tuesday, 79% topped analysts’ expectations, as per Refinitiv IBES data. In a typical quarter, 66% companies beat estimates.

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