What moved
Wall Street ended Thursday with the S&P 500 up 0.72% at 7,730.99 and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.57% at 26,541.35, driven by a violent re-rating of enterprise software and chips that the Dow barely shared (+0.20%). Futures have gone nowhere since: S&P 500 futures are 0.09% firmer and Nasdaq 100 futures 0.13% lower.
Europe is mid-session and broadly higher, led by a rebound in Paris — the CAC 40 is up 1.01%, the Euro Stoxx 50 0.81% and the DAX 0.64%, with the FTSE 100 trailing at +0.16%. Asia finished split: the Nikkei added 0.41% and the Hang Seng 0.07%, while Shanghai eased 0.11% and the Kospi fell 1.79%.
Why
Nothing in the tape is being asked to do much work before 10:00 ET, when Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole address as chair. That is the whole reason futures are flat after a session that big: positions are being carried, not added. Markets want to know how he reads sticky inflation and the recent volatility at the long end — the 30-year is at 5.21% this morning, up 1.9bp, with the 10-year up 2.2bp at 4.69%.
Thursday's move was an earnings story with a narrative attached. Okta, CrowdStrike and Salesforce all beat and lifted guidance, arguing that agentic AI is expanding demand for identity, security and enterprise software rather than eating it — the thesis that had hung over the sector all year. Nvidia's 8.74% jump the same day supplied the hardware half. It was a re-rating of a fear, not of a quarter.
Europe's own tape is doing something narrower. French banks recovered a slice of the previous session's slide on political and fiscal worry, even as second-quarter French GDP was revised to flat from 0.2% and August inflation firmed on energy. Crude is the other mover: Brent is down 2.2% at $87.73 as Iran-Oman talks on Hormuz shipping progress, unwinding a little of the war premium that still leaves it 44% higher this year.
Sentiment & risk appetite
Risk appetite is calm rather than eager. The VIX sits at 14.47, almost 30% below where it was a month ago, and rates vol closed Thursday at 69.86 on the MOVE. But the strength is narrow: on PrimerIQ's US universe, decliners beat advancers 3,066 to 2,698 on Thursday even as the index rose, and our sector medians show technology up 1.82% against consumer cyclicals at -1.36% and consumer defensives at -1.20%. The hedges are still on — gold is 0.75% higher at $4,644.40 and the dollar index is barely changed at 99.22. Copper, at $6.73 and up 2.17%, is within 0.3% of its 52-week high, which sits oddly against soft consumer names.
Economic calendar
There is no first-order US release this morning; the calendar is back-loaded. Chicago PMI for August is due at 9:45 ET (consensus 57.9, prior 57.6), the final University of Michigan sentiment reading at 10:00 ET after a preliminary 51.0 that undershot forecasts, and Warsh speaks at 10:00 ET. The inflation print traders are still working from is Wednesday's July personal income and outlays: core PCE up 0.2% on the month and 3.3% on the year, headline 3.7%.
Europe gave the morning its data. French second-quarter GDP was revised down to flat, and preliminary August inflation rose to 2.4% year on year (2.7% on the harmonised measure) on a sharp acceleration in energy costs — a combination that complicates a September ECB decision the market increasingly leans hawkish on. Fitch is due to review France's rating later today.
Earnings
Nothing material has reported into the US pre-market; the session is trading off Thursday evening's results. Okta closed 28.63% higher, Salesforce 22.58% and CrowdStrike 20.50%, with Veeva up 15.20%, Synopsys 13.39% and Palo Alto Networks 12.83% — a sector-wide re-rate rather than three good quarters. The other side of the tape was unforgiving: Hormel fell 10.25% and HealthEquity 10.56%.