US stock futures rose on Friday as another burst of AI optimism outweighed concerns over $100-plus oil and a 10-year Treasury yield near 5.1%.
Nasdaq 100 futures gained about 0.4% or 145 points, while S&P 500 and Dow futures added roughly 0.3% each.
Semiconductor names led the premarket advance, and Akamai surged after announcing a large Anthropic cloud contract.
The move leaves Wall Street trying to extend a winning week even as investors confront higher-for-longer rate risk, Middle East uncertainty and fresh US data on durable goods and consumer sentiment.
5 things to know before Wall Street opens
1. AI is still overpowering the macro headwinds
AMD, Marvell, Cerebras and Intel were up about 2% each before the bell, while Nvidia and Tesla edged higher.
Technology and communication services have led S&P 500 gains this week, while the Nasdaq remains on course for a weekly advance.
Meta was little changed premarket but was heading for a fifth straight weekly gain, its strongest five-week run since early 2023.
Its Muse assistant has revived interest in AI inference and CPU demand, while Meta is less than 1% away from a $2 trillion market value.
2. Akamai gives the AI infrastructure trade another catalyst
Akamai jumped about 21% after Anthropic committed to spend $11.6 billion over seven years on its cloud infrastructure.
The agreement could expand by another $9 billion, while Anthropic received warrants tied to as much as 5% of Akamai’s shares.
The deal matters beyond Akamai. It reinforces the idea that the next leg of AI spending is spreading beyond GPUs into CPUs, cloud networks and distributed computing infrastructure.
3. Oil and 5% yields remain the ceiling on the rally
Brent remains above $100 after Thursday’s 3.4% jump to $106.60, while the 10-year Treasury yield is around 5.1%.
US and Iranian negotiators are still exploring a phased agreement involving the Strait of Hormuz, but no settlement has been reached.
Bowersock Capital Partners Chief Executive Emily Bowersock Hill told MarketWatch that sustained 10-year yields above 5% could compress equity multiples even if earnings remain solid.
That makes the bond market a direct test for expensive technology stocks.
4. Trump-Xi summit removes one deadline but leaves major disputes open
Thursday’s White House summit produced a two-month extension of the US-China trade truce, pushing its expiry to January 10.
Tariffs, rare-earth supplies, technology restrictions and agricultural purchases remain unresolved.
The result removes an immediate trade deadline without producing a broader settlement, giving companies more time but limited additional certainty over technology and supply-chain rules.
5. Durable goods and Fed speakers could move October hike odds
August durable-goods orders are due at 8:30 am ET, with the headline figure expected to fall 0.3% while core orders are forecast to rise 0.6%. Final September University of Michigan sentiment data follow at 10 am.
Markets assign about a 71% probability to another quarter-point Fed hike in October.
New York Fed President John Williams, Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack are all on Friday’s calendar, keeping the rate debate active into the weekend.
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