Upbeat on Wall Street
Futures point to higher open after Google's profit surges; investors shrug off bigger-than-expected loss at Citi.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stock futures rose early Friday after Internet giant Google defied the economic slowdown and posted a hefty quarterly profit, and traders were willing to look past the bad news in the Citigroup report.
About 90 minutes before the market open, Nasdaq and S&P futures were higher and indicating a positive start for Wall Street despite mixed earnings results from the most recent company reports.
Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) reported a 30% jump in quarterly profit late Thursday. The company also reported a rise in its paid clicks, quieting fears of slowing growth. Paid clicks measure how often users click on text ads.
Google shares surged 18% in premarket trading Friday morning.
Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) showed there was still more pain in financial sector, as the nation's largest bank reported a loss of $5.1 billion loss that was worse than expected as it announced another $12.1 billion in writedowns.
But some traders were expecting even worst losses at Citi and shares of the Dow component rose 7% in pre-market trading despite the problems in the report.
Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), another stock in the Dow 30, posted a better-than-expected gain in earnings, as a weak dollar helped the overseas sales and revenue of the heavy-equipment maker. Its shares gained more than 4% in pre-market trading.
After the bell Thursday, embattled online broker E*Trade (ETFC) reported a larger-than-expected loss in the just completed period, but plans to cut costs 10%. Comments by company officials that its turnaround efforts remain on track despite market turmoil helped to lift shares 7.7% in after-hours trading despite the disappointing results.
But not all the difficulties were in the financial sector results. No. 2 U.S. chipmaker Advance Micro Devices (AMD, Fortune 500) posted a net loss that was in line with analysts' forecasts as the company's CEO said the company is struggling with what he called "a challenging economic environment."
Flash memory chip maker SanDisk reported weaker-than-expected earnings, although that was an improvement from break-even results on a per-share basis a year earlier. Shares still gained 5% in after-hours trading as its revenue topped forecasts and it gave bullish sales guidance for the second quarter.
In global trade, Japan stocks extended their gains. Major markets in Europe also rose in early trading.
Oil prices retreated in early electronic trading as a barrel of light sweet crude lost 86 cents to $114.00.
Stocks finished mixed Thursday as investors weighed a string of earnings. Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) disappointed investors with a big loss while IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) turned in a solid performance. 
