Wall St futures rise as chipmakers advance at end of choppy week

Jan 16 (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Friday as semiconductor shares extended their AI‑fueled rally at the end of a choppy trading week that ushered in the fourth‑quarter earnings season. Memory chipmakers led the gains, with Micron up 6.4% in premarket trading, Western Digital 4.9% and Seagate Technology 4.1%, building on their searing rallies in 2025. The iShares Semiconductor ETF gained 2% on Friday, lifting its near 12% rally so far this year that has handily beaten the Nasdaq 100's 1.2% rise, underscoring investor faith in AI‑driven chip demand even as money shifts out of some heavyweight tech names into more undervalued areas such as small caps, materials and industrial stocks. The three main U.S. stock indexes were headed for slim weekly declines after the S&P 500 and the Dow closed at record levels just on Monday, as worries over the fallout of a proposed 10% one-year cap on credit card interest rates weighed on lenders' shares, overshadowing strong quarterly profit from big U.S. banks. Markets will remain shut on Monday on account of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but earnings season will gather steam next week with results due from the likes of Netflix, Johnson & Johnson and Intel. At 05:52 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 47 points, or 0.09%, 500 E-minis were up 20 points, or 0.29% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 148.25 points, or 0.58%. Investors have also been concerned over the Federal Reserve's independence after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Sunday the Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into him, escalating President Donald Trump's pressure campaign on the Fed to lower interest rates. Remarks from Fed governors Michelle Bowman and Philip Jefferson later in the day will offer clues on voting members' thinking before the U.S. central bank enters its blackout period ahead of its January 27-28 policy meeting. Traders are betting that the Fed will hold rates steady in this month's meeting and have fully priced in a quarter-point rate cut only in July, LSEG data showed. Among other stocks, J.B. Hunt Transport Services dropped nearly 5% after the U.S. trucking firm reported a dip in quarterly revenue from a year ago. U.S. industrial production data for December is due later in the day.  (Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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