Netflix to headline earnings flood; Zions Bancorp reports - what’s moving markets

Investing.com - U.S. stock futures edge down ahead of a flood of quarterly earnings reports that could offer insight into both the state of Corporate America and the broader economy. Streaming giant Netflix is set to headline those companies reporting on Tuesday. Zions Bancorp shares inch higher in after-market trading as executives at the regional lender say issues around a big loss on two loans were an isolated incident. Amazon says its cloud service has returned to normal after an outage, while a parliamentary vote puts Sanae Takaichi on track to become Japan’s first female premier.

1. Futures inch down

U.S. stock futures pointed lower on Tuesday, as investors awaited a slew of corporate earnings and gauged the outlook for trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

By 03:16 ET (07:16 GMT), the Dow futures contract had fallen by 86 poitns, or 0.2%, S&P 500 futures had dipped by 9 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 futures had dropped by 42 points, or 0.2%.

The main averages on Wall Street rose on Monday, powered by a uptick in technology and finance shares, while traders took in upbeat earnings and fears eased over the credit health of U.S. regional banks.

Shares in Apple in particular surged to a fresh record high on a series of bullish media reports about the group’s robust iPhone 17 sales.

Meanwhile, optimism surrounded the U.S.-China trade fight, especially a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month. A White House offficial also hinted at hopes that a resolution to a weeks-long federal government shutdown, which has led to the delay of crucial economic data and threatened to dent U.S. growth, could be coming as soon as this week.

2. Netflix to report

The pace of the quarterly earnings season is set to accelerate this week, after a host of Wall Street lenders signaled a strong start to the latest reporting period.

Among the names highlighting Monday’s docket of results is streaming giant Netflix, which will unveil its figures after the closing bell.

Shares of Netflix have climbed by more than 39% so far this year, reflecting mostly solid sentiment around a company that has moved to enhance its status as one of the icon’s of the streaming industry by introducing advertising to its platform.

But observers may be curious to hear how the business has been impacted by calls from tech mogul Elon Musk for users to cancel their subscriptions over a controversy surrounding an animated show and its creator.

Elsewhere, GE Aerospace, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, and RTX Corp. are also due to report today.

3. Zions Bancorp earnings

Shares of Zions Bancorp ticked higher in extended hours trading after the lender posted an increase in third-quarter profit underpinned by net interest income.

The gain came even after the regional player announced a hefty loss on two commercial and industrial loans from its California division worth $50 million last week.

This disclosure, coupled with separate announcements from Western Alliance and Jefferies, sparked a sudden and steep drop in banking shares on Thursday, as investors fretted over the lending activity at smaller U.S. banks.

However, Zions Chief Credit Officer Derek Steward told analysts during a post-earnings call that the company was "confident this was an isolated incident in our portfolio."

Net interest income, or the difference between what a bank pays for deposits and makes from loans, stood at $672 million compared to $620 million a year ago.

4. Amazon says AWS cloud service back to normal

Amazon has said that operations at its cloud service have returned to normal, following an outage on Monday which caused global turmoil that led to hundreds of websites going offline for hours.

But the e-commerce titan said its Amazon Web Services unit was facing a backlog of messages which would still require a few hours to process.

The outage at AWS, the world’s biggest cloud infrastructure provider, disrupted operations for several businesses, including AI firm Perplexity as well as trading platforms Coinbase and Robinhood.

AWS said the disruption stemmed from an issue with a regional gateway on the U.S. East Coast.

5. Takaichi wins key vote to become Japan’s first female prime minister

Sanae Takaichi, leader of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, won a key lower house vote on Tuesday that clears the path for her inauguration as the country’s first female prime minister later in the day.

The 64-year old conservative leader won 237 votes, more than the required majority in the 465-seat lower house, Japanese media reports showed.

But early voting results indicated that Takaichi did not gain a majority in Japan’s less powerful upper house, resulting in a runoff vote against Constitutional Democratic Party candidate Yoshihiko Noda.

The LDP leader is still expected to be sworn in as Japan’s 104th prime minister.

Takaichi will succeed Shigeru Ishiba, who had abruptly resigned in September after the LDP suffered crushing losses in recent elections. She is widely regarded as a fiscal dove, and is expected to dole out more government spending on infrastructure, industrialization, and defence. She will take leadership of the world’s fourth-largest economy as it grapples with slowing consumer spending, sticky inflation, and trade-related headwinds from U.S. tariffs.