Nasdaq futures bolstered by Netflix’s subscriber turnaround

(Reuters) – Nasdaq futures held steady on Wednesday after streaming major Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) posted a reversal in customer losses but concerns over rising interest rates weighed on the overall mood and looked set to stall a recent rally on Wall Street.

The three major U.S. stock indexes have notched two straight session of gains on the back of solid quarterly results from big U.S. banks that kicked off the reporting season on a bright note. [.N]

Netflix jumped 12% in premarket trading after it attracted 2.4 million new subscribers worldwide in the third quarter, more than double the consensus forecast, and guided for 4.5 million additions by year end.

“Netflix is the latest tonic for battered bulls,” said Elsa Lignos, global head of FX Strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

“In recent days, two themes of European energy relief coupled with ‘better-than-expected’ Q3 earnings relief have taken hold, though it is still too early to judge and the bulk of big earnings releases don’t come until next week.”

Netflix’s subscriber turnaround also lifted stocks of rival streaming companies. Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) gained between 0.4% and 3.12%.

Mega-cap growth stocks like Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc added between 0.3% and 0.6%.

Analysts have cut their third-quarter earnings expectations for S&P 500 companies to just 2.8%, from an 11.1% increase forecast at the start of July, according to Refinitiv data.

At 5:00 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 39 points, or 0.13%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.25 points, or 0.10%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 12.25 points, or 0.15%.