- US tech stock futures rallied on Wednesday after Alphabet's massive earnings beat the day before.
- More upbeat results from European banks lifted the region's benchmark indices.
- Weaker dollar pushes oil prices up while cryptocurrencies steadied on Wednesday.
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US technology stock futures rallied on Wednesday, after another set of run-away quarterly earnings – this time from Google parent Alphabet, while investors pared back some of their expectations for aggressive rate rises this year, which dented the dollar.
Fourth-quarter earnings have been mixed, even in the tech sector, with PayPal issuing a downbeat outlook on Tuesday, while mega-caps like Apple and Microsoft have smashed analyst expectations so far.
NASDAQ 100 futures were last up 1.5% on the day, roundly outperforming those on the S&P 500 and Dow Jones, which traded 0.8% and 0.1% higher, respectively.
The next risk event for markets will be Wednesday's ADP report of private-sector payroll growth for January.
"Today's January report could well come in much weaker due to the disruption caused by Omicron over the Christmas and New Year period, which has seen weekly jobless claims rise sharply," CMC Markets chief markets strategist Michael Hewson said.
Economists expect to see a rise of 184,000, but investors should not read too much into what this could say about Friday's monthly employment report, Hewson said.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was up following bumper bank earnings. This time, it was Spain's Santander, which announced its strongest quarterly underlying profit in 12 years in the final months of 2021. Banking and financial services stocks were among the region's best-performing sectors on Wednesday.
European investors are awaiting a decision on monetary policy from the European Central Bank and Bank of England this week. The ECB is under pressure to withdraw monetary stimulus, as inflation readings across the eurozone pick up, but the central bank may take a more cautious approach, according to Caxton FX strategist Michael Brown.
"We expect the rate of inflation to continue falling from here on in, through 2022, keeping the ECB on the dovish end of the spectrum," Brown said.
The dollar fell for a fourth day, in its longest losing streak since last October, as investors trimmed some of their bets on the Federal Reserve taking a highly aggressive stance towards monetary policy this year. The weaker US currency helped lift oil prices back toward $90 a barrel on Wednesday.
Finally, the cryptocurrency market regained some poise, after a volatile week, with ethereum's native token ether up 0.5% over the past 24 hours, while bitcoin eased 0.3% on Wednesday, but still showed a 2% gain over the the last week, according to data from CoinMarketCap.