U.S. stock index futures took a pause on Friday after declining in the previous session when a drop in heavyweight retailer Walmart, coupled with ongoing tariff jitters and an uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook, triggered risk aversion.

Market Snapshot

At 7:50 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 194 points, or 0.44%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 3.75 points, or 0.06%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 73.25 points, or 0.33%.

Pre-Market Movers

Chinese ADRs - U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba rose another 4% in premarket trading. The Chinese e-commerce giant closed with a gain of 8.1% on Thursday afterquarterly earningsbeat Wall Street expectations, and after The Wall Street Journal reported late in the session that GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen in recent months hasboosted his stake in Alibabato $1 billion, or about 7 million shares. The Journal report cited people familiar with the matter.

Other Chinese ADRs also jumped again in premarket trading as upbeat earnings lifted sentiment. Direxion Daily FTSE China Bull 3X Shares rose 5%; Bilibili rose 6%; Li Auto rose 5%; XPeng and iQiyi rose 4%; Baidu, PDD Holdings, and NIO rose 3%; JD.com rose 2%.

Palantir - Shares of Palantir Technologies were up 1.1% in premarket trading. The software company declined 5.2% on Thursday, extending losses from Wednesday when it lost 10%. The decline followed reports of potential U.S. defense budget cuts, and came after CEO Alex Karp adopted a new trading plan to sell up to 9,975,000 Palantir shares.

Celsius Holdings - Celsius Holdings jumped 32.4% after the maker of energy drinks posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations and announced an agreement to buy rival Alani Nu, a growing energy-drink brand fueled by social-media influencers, for $1.8 billion in cash and stock.

Rivian - Rivian Automotive, the electric-vehicle company, postedfourth-quarter gross profitof $170 million, higher than analysts’ estimates of $64 million. Sales were $1.7 billion versus forecasts of $1.5 billion. The stock, however, was down 3.5% in premarket trading after Rivian said it expects an adjusted loss before interest and taxes of between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion in 2025, below consensus that called for a loss around $1.69 billion. The company also said it expects to deliver 46,000 to 51,000 vehicles in 2025, with the midpoint of that range of 48,500 below Wall Street projections of about 55,000 vehicles. 

Block - Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App, was falling 9.1% after the fintech company reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 71 cents a share on revenue of $6.03 billion, missing analysts’ expectations for earnings of 88 cents on revenue of $6.3 billion. Gross profit in the quarter was $2.31 billion, up 14% from a year earlier. Block said it expects gross profit growth in 2025 to increase 15% to $10.22 billion, below Wall Street estimates of $10.28 billion.

UnitedHealth - UnitedHealth declined 8.8% after The Wall Street Journal reported the Justice Department was investigating the health insurer’s Medicare billing practices in recent months. The report cited people familiar with the matter.

fuboTV - FuboTV shares rallied 6.2% in premarket trading on Friday, reversing two-day losing streak. The sports-first live TV streaming platform will issue financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024 before the market opens on February 28, 2025.

MercadoLibre - Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre posted a better-than-expected quarterly net profit, up nearly four-fold from the same period a year earlier and sending its shares up 11.5% in premarket trading.

Nu Holdings - Nu Holdings stock sank 7.1% in premarket trading after the Brazilian digital bank turned in Q4 2024 earnings and revenue that missed the Wall Street consensus as purchase volume slid during the quarter.

Booking Holdings - Online travel company Booking Holdings reported fourth-quarter earnings and bookings that beat analysts’ expectations. Room nights booked rose 13% to 261 million in the period, better than analysts’ expectations of 250 million, while gross bookings gained 17%. The stock was rising 3.1%.

Akamai - Akamai Technologies was down 10.2% after the cloud computing company said it expects first-quarter adjusted earnings of between $1.54 and $1.59 a share on revenue of $1 billion to $1.02 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.65 a share on revenue of $1.05 billion.

Dropbox - Dropbox fell 8.1%. The cloud storage company reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates but said during its conference call that it expects paying users in 2025 to decline by roughly 1.5% to 300,000.

Five9 - Five9 rose 16.3% after the call-center software company posted fourth-quarter earnings of 79 cents a share on revenue of $278.7 million, beating analysts’ estimates for profit of 70 cents on revenue of $267.8 million.

Market News

Musk Looks at Auditing the Federal Reserve

Elon Musk on Thursday offered hints about the work to come, including auditing the Federal Reserve, as his Department of Government Efficiency bulldozes through federal agencies in its effort to identify and implement budget and staffing cuts under authority from President Trump.

Asked if he plans to audit the Federal Reserve, Musk said yes without offering elaboration. He also added fuel to the possibility of giving payouts to the public from some of the budget savings that DOGE identifies. Trump said Wednesday that he was weighing the idea.

The billionaire also said that he would be looking into whether there is gold in Fort Knox, the depository in Kentucky for U.S. gold reserves, an idea that was raised a day earlier by Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Thursday that there is an audit every year and that “all the gold is there.”

Fed Officials Flag Rising Inflation Risks, Trump Policy Uncertainty

Federal Reserve officials are taking note of what they see as rising inflation risks and the uncertain impact of President Donald Trump's trade, immigration and other policies.

On Thursday, several signaled they still feel that cooling U.S. inflation will in time allow the U.S. central bank to deliver further interest rate cuts; one said that current conditions call for holding rates steady, and gave no indication of when, or whether, she felt cuts would be needed.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has delivered a steady stream of actions - or threats of them - to impose tariffs on goods from key U.S. trading partners, including China, Mexico and Canada.