07:46 AM EDT, 07/31/2026 (MT Newswires) -- The benchmark US stock measures were tracking in the green before the open Friday as Amazon's ( AMZN ) better-than-expected quarterly results improved sentiment around the artificial intelligence trade.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.5% and the Nasdaq gained 1.1% in premarket activity. The indexes finished the previous trading session up, with the Nasdaq snapping a six-day losing streak and recording its biggest single-day percentage gain since June 15.

Shares of Amazon ( AMZN ) rose 13% pre-bell after the e-commerce giant reported second-quarter earnings above Wall Street's estimates amid a 37% jump in its Amazon Web Services cloud computing business.

"Amazon's ( AMZN ) print was exactly what bulls wanted," RBC Capital Markets said in an emailed client note on Friday. "AWS's accelerating 37% growth beat the bogey, the backlog meaningfully accelerated and AWS's margin flow-through would suggest AI may not be the (return on investment) depressant it's been made out to be."

Apple ( AAPL ) fell 7.1% early Friday as the company missed market estimates for iPad and services revenue in its fiscal third quarter. The tech giant recently increased prices for MacBooks and iPads amid surging memory and storage chip costs.

Meta Platforms ( META ) rose 1.9% while Microsoft ( MSFT ) was down 0.5% following a 16% jump at the close of Thursday trading. Social media platform Reddit ( RDDT ) fell 9.3% following its latest quarterly results.

Government data on Thursday showed that the US personal consumption expenditure price index decreased 0.1% month over month in June, marking the first decline since April 2020. A separate report showed that US economic growth slowed more than expected in the second quarter, though consumer spending seemed to shrug off intensifying price measures.

Treasury yields were trending higher in premarket action, with the two-year rate increasing 2.7 basis points to 4.26% and the 10-year rate adding 0.6 basis points to 4.67%.

Iran's army said Friday that it launched strikes on strategic US assets and military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, following Washington's attack against Iran earlier in the week, CNBC reported, citing state media.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday reportedly proposed to form a naval alliance to protect key shipping routes in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz, with Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen continuing to attack vessels amid the ongoing conflict with the US. About 40 countries attended a meeting to discuss strengthening maritime cooperation, the Saudi Defense Ministry reportedly said.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up 0.4% at $83.93 a barrel before the opening bell, while Brent advanced 0.7% to $89.53.

Oil giants ExxonMobil ( XOM ) and Chevron ( CVX ) report their latest financial results before the bell, along with AbbVie ( ABBV ) , Colgate-Palmolive ( CL ) , Moderna ( MRNA ) , Magna International ( MGA ) and AutoNation ( AN ) .

Friday's economic calendar has the Chicago purchasing managers' index for July at 9:45 am ET, followed by the final University of Michigan consumer sentiment report for the same month at 10 am. The weekly Baker Hughes oil-and-gas rig count is out at 1 pm.

Gold declined 1.2% to $4,113 per troy ounce, while bitcoin shed 1.6% to $63,713.