US STOCKS-Futures climb ahead of Amazon, Alphabet earnings; stimulus in focus

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* Futures up: Dow 0.82%, S&P 0.86%, Nasdaq 0.84%

By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose about 1% on
Tuesday, building on the previous session's momentum, as
investors anticipated strong results from Amazon and
Google-parent Alphabet while also looking for signs of progress
on a pandemic-relief package.
Alphabet GOOGL.O , which will report the cost and operating
profit of its Google Cloud business for the first time, added
1.3% premarket, while retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O
gained 1.2%.
Both the companies, set to report their fourth-quarter
earnings after market close, have jumped more than 7% each after
strong earnings from rest of the FAANG group last month.
About 84% of the 186 S&P 500 firms that have reported so far
have topped estimates for earnings, well above the 75.5% beat
rate for the past four quarters, according to Refinitiv IBES
data.
Investors are gauging outlooks from big corporations to
justify elevated stock market valuations, at a time when
concerns over a raging pandemic and new coronavirus variants
have triggered fears of a short-term pullback in markets.
At 06:30 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 247 points,
or 0.82%, and S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 32.5 points, or
0.86%. Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 109.75 points, or
0.84%.
Investors also kept a close watch on progress in U.S.
stimulus talks. After meeting with Republican senators at the
White House on Monday, President Joe Biden appeared poised to
push forward with his proposed $1.9 trillion relief plan even if
it fails to draw Republican support. Wall Street's fear gauge .VIX retreated to near one-week
lows as a retail-driven mania for shorted assets showed signs of
fizzling out.
The so-called "meme" stocks GameStop Corp GME.N , AMC
Entertainment AMC.N and Nokia NOK.N tumbled between 23% and
30%, while miners Hecla Mining Co HL.N and Coeur Mining Inc
CDE.N tracked a fall in spot silver prices XAG= .
Ford Motor Co F.N added 2% after the U.S. automaker said
it will invest $1.05 billion in its South African manufacturing
operations, including upgrades to expand production of its
Ranger pickup truck. Shares of Exxon Mobil XOM.N rose 1.5% ahead of its results
scheduled before the bell, which are expected to be marred by a
charge of up to $20 billion on the value of its natural gas
properties.