Credit: REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMIDBy Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan
Oct 27 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to bounce on Tuesday following the benchmark S&P 500's worst day in a month as investors parsed through a deluge of corporate earnings, while bracing for volatility ahead of Election Day.
Merck & Co Inc MRK.N gained 1.2% premarket as it raised its full-year earnings forecast. Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co LLY.N fell about 4% after its quarterly profit took a hit from increased costs to develop a COVID-19 treatment.
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O firmed 0.8% in the run-up to its results after the closing bell. Apple Inc AAPL.O, Amazon.com AMZN.O, Google-parent Alphabet GOOGL.O and Facebook Inc FB.O, which account for about a fifth of the S&P 500's total value, also report results this week.
"Overhanging the market is the growth of the virus in the U.S., and technology in particular seems the least exposed sector," said Rick Meckler, partner, Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.
"A focus on the big technology companies may move this market to rally despite the problems the virus is creating."
Record number of new coronavirus infections in the United States and some European countries and a stalled U.S. fiscal stimulus raised worries about a fledgling economic recovery, sending the three major U.S. stock indexes to near four-week lows on Monday.
Wall Street's fear gauge .VIX hovered at its highest level in nearly two months on uncertainty about the outcome of the election.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump in national polls but the race is much tighter in battleground states which determine the election outcome.
At 08:09 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 0.32% at 27,669 points and S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 rose 0.46% to 3,409 points. Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 0.61% at 11,563 points.
Insurer American International Group Inc AIG.N jumped 6.4% after its board approved a plan to separate the life and retirement business from the rest of the company, and named President Peter Zaffino as chief executive officer, effective next year.
Semiconductor designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD.O rose 0.3% as it agreed to buy Xilinx Inc XLNX.O in a $35 billion all-stock deal that will intensify its battle with Intel Corp INTC.O in the data center chip market. Xilinx shares soared about 15%.
Industrial companies 3M Co MMM.N and Caterpillar Inc CAT.N also dropped about 1% after reporting results.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
((Medha.Singh@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S. +1646 223 8780, outside U.S. +91 80 6182 2802; Twitter: https://twitter.com/medhasinghs;))
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