Wall St set for flat open as Middle East jitters ease, Netflix slumps
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Netflix falls after dour Q2 forecast
Paramount up on likely Sony Pictures, Apollo buyout bid
Futures: Dow down 0.01%, S&P up 0.03%, Nasdaq down 0.09%
Updated at 8:31 a.m. ET/1231 GMT
By Shashwat Chauhan and Shristi Achar A
April 19 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes eyed a flat open onFriday as initial jitters about an escalation in the Middle East conflict subsided, while Netflix dropped after forecastingcurrent-quarter revenue below estimates.
Explosions echoed over an Iranian city on Friday in what sources described as an Israeli attack , but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting a region-wide war.
"Once the details were released, the markets were relieved and as you can see, the markets are off their lows," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.
"As far as the conflict is concerned, that is always going to be a worry factor for the market. The earnings are more of a fundamental than the geopolitical concerns."
Netflix NFLX.O slumped 6.4% in premarket trading following the streaming video pioneer's lackluster second-quarter forecast.
Shares of other streaming services providers such as Walt Disney DIS.N and Roku ROKU.O retreated0.7% and 1.2%, respectively.
The S&P 500 .SPX and the Nasdaq .IXIC closed lower for the fifth straight session on Thursday, as economic data and comments from Fed officials suggested that the U.S. central bank was unlikely to cut interest rates in the near future.
Federal Reserve policymakers have coalesced around the idea of keeping borrowing costs where they are until perhaps well into the year, given slow and bumpy progress on inflation, and a still-strong U.S. economy.
Equities were rattled this week as investors readjusted their expectations over by how much the Fed would cut rates this year, with both the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow .DJI poised for a third weekly decline, while the Nasdaq was set for its fourth consecutive weekly loss, if current trend holds.
Money markets are now pricing in about 39basis points (bps)of cuts from the central bank this year, down from around 150 bps seen at the beginning of 2024, according to LSEG data.
U.S. stocks suffered an outflow of $4.1 billion in the latest week, according to Bank of America's weekly 'Flow Show' report , their largest two-week outflow since December 2022.
The CBOE Volatility index .VIX, also known as Wall Street's "fear gauge", was last up 0.61 points at 18.61 after breaching the psychologically important level of 20 earlier in the session.
At 8:31 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 3 points, or 0.01%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 1.75 points, or 0.03%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 15.25 points, or 0.09%.
Shares of Paramount Global PARA.O jumped 8.3% after a person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Sony 6758.T Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management APO.N are discussing making a joint bid for the company.
Procter & Gamble PG.Nslipped 1.6% after the consumer goods giant missed third-quarter net sales estimates.
Ulta Beauty ULTA.Ofell 1.4% after Jefferies downgraded the cosmetics retailer to "hold" from "buy".
Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Maju Samuel
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