US stock futures hit pause on Wednesday after a record-setting session for the Dow as investors braced for another packed day of earnings highlighted by Tesla (TSLA) and IBM (IBM).

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were little changed. Contracts on the the S&P 500 (ES=F) rose 0.1%.

Wall Street is on watch for the next rush of earnings, after upbeat blue-chip results on Tuesday helped propel the Dow (^DJI) to a new all-time closing high. Tesla’s (TSLA) quarterly report is due after the bell, kicking off a round of "Magnificent Seven" updates that could test the resilience of the recent stock rally.

In premarket, Netflix (NFLX) stock dropped more than 7% after the streaming giant's earnings missed expectations thanks in part to a Brazil tax dispute. Shares in Mattel (MAT) also pulled back as the toymaker's North American sales fell short.

Meanwhile, gold (GC=F) added to its losses in choppy action, after booking its biggest one-day decline in over a decade on Tuesday. Markets appear to be setting aside trade-war worries for now, even as President Trump injected fresh uncertainty around tensions with China. At the same time, the US and India are reportedly closing in on a deal to cut tariffs on Indian exports to as low as 15% from the current 50%.

Official economic releases are still on hold as the US federal shutdown continues. The September Consumer Price Index report on Friday will be the next major data point for markets. The inflation print will help guide expectations ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week, where traders widely anticipate a 25-basis-point interest-rate cut.

DraftKings (DKNG) stock rose 5% before the bell on Wednesday following the announcement that the American gambling company had made its debut into the prediction markets with the acquistion of Railbird Technologies.

Mattel's (MAT) earnings slumped 6% in premarket trading on Wednesday after missing Wall Street earnings on revenue for its third-quarter earnings report.

Humana (HUM) stock fell almost 3% before the bell on Wednesday. over the last six months Humana stock has been up 20% and over the last 12 months it has risen 16%.

Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) stock stepped higher in premarket after Bloomberg reported that the Google parent is in talks with Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) to provide the AI startup with cloud services.

Meanwhile, shares in Amazon (AMZN), also an Anthropic investor and cloud provider, slipped 1%.

Bloomberg reports:

Anthropic PBC is in discussions with Alphabet Inc.’s Google about a deal that would provide the artificial intelligence company with additional computing power valued in the high tens of billions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter.

The plan, which has not been finalized, involves Google providing cloud computing services to Anthropic, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

The deal will allow Anthropic to use Google’s tensor processing units, or TPUs — the company’s chips that are custom designed to accelerate machine learning workloads, one of the people said. Google is a previous investor in, and cloud provider for, Anthropic.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reporting late yesterday Google (GOOG) is in talks with Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) on a cloud deal possibly worth \\"tens of billions\\" of dollars.

Good call out on this from Keybanc analyst Justin Patterson this morning:

\\"This is yet another sign that demand for AI remains strong and that leading frontier model providers are rapidly adding capacity (note: Anthropic's investment would follow OpenAI's recent series of announcements). For Google Cloud, we believe an expanded Anthropic partnership would be viewed as another sign that Google Cloud is gaining market share and that TPUs are strategically important.\\"

Commentary like this last night from Texas Instruments (TXN) CEO Haviv Ilan on his earnings call warrants watching out for in other semi earnings releases:

\\"The overall semiconductor market recovery is continuing, though, at a slower pace than prior upturns, likely related to the broader macroeconomic dynamics and overall uncertainty.\\"

Since we are still devoid of government economic data, clues on the economic outlook like this from public companies are more important than the norm. Along these lines, General Motors (GM) CFO Paul Jacobsen did slip into my chat with him the company is seeing a pickup in loan delinquencies.

Texas Instruments (TXN) stock fell 8% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the chipmaker forecast downbeat fourth-quarter profit and revenue, leading investors to grow concerned over the company's outlook and recovery.

Reuters reports:

While TI has reduced some of its business exposure to the Trump administration's tariffs through trade deals, uncertainty over additional levies and trade negotiations has weighed on investor sentiment and delayed the pace of recovery.

\\"The recovery pace is much more gradual than anticipated,\\" said J.P. Morgan analysts, adding the wider industry \\"could still be muted by tariff/trade and sluggish auto recovery\\".

Trump said in August the U.S. would impose a tariff of about 100% on imports of semiconductors but offered an exemption to companies that are manufacturing in the country or have committed to do so.

Read more here.

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) stock jumped 15% before the bell on Wednesday after beating Wall Street earnings for its third-quarter earnings.

Reuters reports:

The company, known for its da Vinci robotic systems, has seen steady growth as hospitals work through a backlog of deferred procedures and expand access to minimally invasive care.

The medical device maker slightly raised its adjusted gross profit margin forecast for 2025 to between 67% and 67.5% from between 66% and 67%.

The updated range includes an estimated impact from tariffs of 0.7% of revenue, plus or minus 10 basis points, compared with the previously estimated impact of 1% of revenue.

More than 80% of the instruments and accessories for the company's da Vinci system are produced at Intuitive's facility in Mexico, while the company also operates in China and other international markets.

The company now expects worldwide da Vinci-assisted procedures to increase about 17% to 17.5% in 2025, compared with its previous range of 15.5% to 17%.

Read more here.

Shares in Netflix (NFLX) fell over 7% before the bell after its third quarter results missed the mark, even as the streaming giant nudged up its guidance for the current quarter.

The streaming giant said late Tuesday it booked an unexpected $619 million expense in a tax dispute with Brazil, which weighed on profit. Meanwhile, revenue came in just shy of expectations.

Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal reports:

Looking ahead, Netflix now forecasts a 2025 operating margin of 29%, down slightly from its prior expectation of 30%, reflecting the impact of the tax matter. ...

Netflix said \\"engagement remains healthy\\" thanks to a particularly strong content slate in the third quarter. ...

Alongside its content push, executives have pointed to the $7.99 ad-supported tier as a longer-term driver of user growth, with the company reporting its strongest ad sales quarter to date.

Netflix said it now has a “solid foundation” and is “increasingly confident” in the outlook for its ads business, noting that ad revenue is on track to more than double in 2025 from a still-small base following a US upfront that saw commitments more than double year over year.

Read more here.

Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) stabilized after sharp falls overnight as investors took profits from precious metal investments.

Bloomberg reports:

Spot gold fell as much as 3% to trade near $4,000 an ounce, before paring losses. That came after it tumbled as much as 6.3% on Tuesday in the biggest intraday decline in more than a dozen years. Spot silver declined again after posting an intraday loss of 8.7% in the previous session. The slumps came after technical indicators showed scorching rallies for both precious metals were likely overstretched.

The pullback has brought an abrupt halt to a months-long advance that had seen both precious metals post record highs in recent days. Gold is coming off its ninth straight week of gains and prices remain about 55% higher this year, underpinned by central-bank buying and inflows to exchange-traded funds, along with soaring demand for havens in the face of geopolitical and trade tensions.

“It could also be that people thought — what the hell, most of us are long and at great averages, so it’s a good time to take profit,” said Nicholas Frappell, global head of institutional markets at ABC Refinery in Sydney.

Gold had also soared in large part because of bets on the Federal Reserve making at least one outsized rate cut by year-end, as well as the so-called debasement trade, in which some investors have pulled away from sovereign debt and currencies to protect themselves from runaway budget deficits.

Read more here.