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Snowflake surges on upbeat 2026 product revenue forecast

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Salesforce ( CRM ) falls on downbeat annual revenue forecast

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US weekly jobless claims rise more than expected

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Futures up: Dow 0.06%, S&P 500 0.39%, Nasdaq 0.62%

(Updates before markets open)

By Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta

Feb 26 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes looked set

for a higher open on Thursday as AI bellwether Nvidia's ( NVDA ) upbeat

forecast soothed concerns of cooling demand in the industry,

though a jump in weekly jobless claims kept a check on gains.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) advanced 1.6% in premarket trading - a move

much tamer than some of the stock's recent post-results surges -

as the company's revenue growth slowed further and it forecast

first-quarter gross margin slightly below expectations.

Fellow chipmakers Broadcom ( AVGO ) added 1.8% and Advanced

Micro Devices ( AMD ) gained 1%.

Megacaps Microsoft and Meta, among

Nvidia's ( NVDA ) largest customers, rose 0.3% and 1.2%, respectively,

bouncing from declines earlier in the month.

The launch of low-cost AI models from China's DeepSeek in

January cooled a two-year, tech-driven bull run on Wall Street,

with Nvidia ( NVDA ) losing half a trillion dollars in market value in a

single day. More recently, an analyst report suggesting

Microsoft ( MSFT ) was scrapping some data center leases also raised

concerns of overcapacity.

"A lot of the momentum trade, which holds many of these

stocks, has been quite volatile," said Leslie Thompson,

co-founder and chief investment officer at Spectrum Wealth

Management.

"So the news coming from Nvidia ( NVDA ) is bringing confidence

around the market in general, and obviously to tech

specifically."

At 08:48 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 24

points, or 0.06%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 23.5 points,

or 0.39% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 130.5 points, or

0.62%.

Dampening some risk taking,

data showed

jobless claims stood at 242,000, higher than estimates of

221,000.

The report comes on the heels of multiple data points

over the past week that suggested the economy was stalling,

fears of which have also put all three major U.S. indexes on

track for monthly declines.

"There has already been a bit of a growth scare in

markets after (business activity data) last week came in soft

... so this data is going to get a lot of attention," said Ross

Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.

Separately, a second estimate showed gross domestic

product rose by 2.3% in the fourth quarter of 2024 - in line

with a previous forecast.

In his latest threats on trade partners, U.S. President

Donald Trump floated a 25% "reciprocal" tariff on European cars

and other goods.

But he sowed confusion on the timeline of Mexican and

Canadian duties after saying they could take effect on April 2,

while a White House official said the previous March 4 deadline

remained in effect.

Focus will now shift to the monthly Personal Consumption

Expenditure data, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation

gauge, due on Friday.

According to data compiled by LSEG, traders expect the

Fed to lower borrowing costs by at least 50 basis points by

December.

Comments from policymakers including Thomas Barkin,

Jeffrey Schmid, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr and

Governor Michelle Bowman are due through the day.

Dow component Salesforce ( CRM ) forecast fiscal 2026

revenue below expectations, sending shares of the business

software provider down 2.5%.

Snowflake rose 12.6% after the data analytics

provider forecast fiscal 2026 product revenue above estimates.

Moderna ( MRNA ) dropped 3.8% after a report said U.S.

health officials were reevaluating a $590 million contract that

was awarded to the drugmaker for the development of its bird flu

vaccine.