Reuters
Wall Street's main indexes were set for a higher open on Friday as robust quarterly results from Alphabet and Microsoft lifted growth stocks, while fresh evidence of progress on the inflation front rekindled hopes of an interest rate cut this year. Alphabet jumped 11.7% in premarket trading after the Google-parent announced its first-ever dividend, a $70 billion stock buyback and beat estimates for first-quarter results. Lifting sentiment further, Microsoft gained 3.9% on beating Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and profit, driven by gains from AI adoption across its cloud services.