By Medha Singh
(Reuters) - Wall Street was set to claw back some of the losses from a brutal two-day selloff on Wednesday as Apple Inc and other major technology stocks regained a foothold and oil prices steadied.
Apple shares were up 1.1 percent in premarket trading. The have lost more than 20 percent from their record closing high on Oct. 3 due to concerns over waning iPhone demand.
Worries about slowing global growth and peaking corporate earnings have sapped risk appetite in recent months, throwing into doubt the longevity of the decade-old bull run for stocks.
The Nasdaq closed at its lowest level in over seven months on Tuesday, while the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow erased all their gains for the year after technology stocks continued to tumble and a bunch of disappointing retail earnings and forecasts soured the mood.
The pressure on technology stocks appeared to have eased on Wednesday, with the FAANG group - Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Netflix Inc and Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc - gaining between 0.93 percent and 2.52 percent.
Foot Locker Inc shares surged 15.5 percent after the footwear retailer's third-quarter comparable sales trumped expectations. The company said its footwear unit posted its first comparable gain in six quarters.
Shares of Nike Inc, a Foot Locker supplier, rose 1.6 percent.
Autodesk Inc rose 8.1 percent after the software company reported third-quarter results ahead of analysts' estimates and announced an $875 million deal to buy PlanGrid as it looks to strengthen its cloud-based construction platform.
"The tone for bulls is to find anything to stop the bleeding," said Michael Antonelli, managing director, institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.
"I think the first hour will be super critical today. If sellers come in and just start smacking the thing right away then we are set for more volatility, more bloodbath here."
At 8:46 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 142 points, or 0.58 percent. S&P 500 e-minis were up 19.25 points, or 0.73 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 70.25 points, or 1.08 percent.
A report on Tuesday said iPhone assembler Foxconn aims to cut 20 billion yuan ($2.88 billion) from expenses in 2019.
"It's not going to be incremental. People are already pricing in a huge slowdown for iPhones," Antonelli said.
The Philadelphia SE semiconductor index, which has underperformed the S&P 500 for the year, was poised to gain, with Advanced Micro Devices Inc up 4.2 percent, Nvidia Corp gaining 3.9 percent and Micron Technology Inc rising 1.9 percent.
Among other early movers, Deere & Co fell 2.8 percent, after reporting quarterly earnings below Wall Street's expectations, hurt by a slowdown in demand.
(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
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