By Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Wednesday, as hopes of a Middle East peace breakthrough offset the slide in shares of SpaceX and AMD after the upbeat forecasts issued by the companies failed to impress investors.
Elon Musk-led SpaceX's revenue nearly doubled and operating losses narrowed in its first earnings report since going public, fueled by its booming Starlink satellite communications and AI businesses.
But the rocket
company's shares slid 10.3% in premarket trading after executives flagged the spending spree underpinning its lofty ambitions was far from over. Shares could face additional pressure from the expiry of the stock's post-IPO lock-up period starting on Thursday. Musk's other company, Tesla, slipped 0.8%.
"This is the culmination of the story of this entire earnings season. SpaceX beat analysts' expectations on revenue, but spending on AI is getting out of hand, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon," said Nic Puckrin, cross-asset analyst and founder of Coin Bureau.
Advanced Micro Devices forecast quarterly revenue above estimates, reflecting strong AI demand. However, shares slipped 8.6%, suggesting investors were looking for a stronger outlook to justify the stock's 142% jump this year.
Rival Nvidia's shares, which have lagged AMD this year, rose 1.5%, also underpinned by SpaceX's plans to use the company's hardware exclusively to build its data centers.
Other chip stocks such as Intel lost 2.8% and Micron shed 2%, while megacaps Microsoft and Alphabet added about 1% each. The stocks looked set to add to Wall Street's rally spanning the past few sessions that took the benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow to record highs.
Investors also weighed a slew of earnings from other sectors. Drugmaker Eli Lilly was up 5.5% after raising its full-year revenue forecast, while Disney rose 3.5% after beating third-quarter profit expectations.
Arista Networks jumped 10.7%, as the networking equipment maker forecast third-quarter revenue above estimates. Uber lost 3.6% after forecasting current-quarter adjusted earnings below estimates.
At 8:23 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis rose 259 points, or 0.48%, S&P 500 E-minis gained 37.25 points, or 0.48%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis added 61 points, or 0.2%.
On the data front, an ADP survey showed that the economy added 44,000 jobs in July, missing economists' expectations of 70,000. The bigger focus will be on the official non-farm payrolls figures on Friday.
A survey on services sector activity during the previous month is also due at 10 a.m. ET.
Data has broadly reflected robust economic performance, but with Middle East tensions keeping energy costs elevated and the Federal Reserve offering no forecasts on monetary policy, uncertainty persists.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari in an interview with CNBC said he believed now is the time to start slowly moving interest rates higher.
Remarks from Governor Lisa Cook and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly will be scrutinized for their perspectives on interest rates.
Traders are pricing in a 58.4% chance of a rate hike in September, the CME Group's FedWatch Tool showed.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Maju Samuel)
