By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Tuesday as an upbeat profit forecast from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:) added to the positive momentum in corporate earnings generated by big banks last week.

Johnson & Johnson’s shares rose 1.7% after it raised its 2021 adjusted profit forecast, even as it stuck to its outlook of $2.5 billion in sales from its COVID-19 vaccine this year.

Walmart (NYSE) Inc shares rose 2% following the addition by Goldman Sachs (NYSE) of the biggest retailer in the United States to its Americas Conviction List.

Communication and large-cap technology firms with large revenues include Facebook Inc (NASDAQ):, Apple Inc (NASDAQ):, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ):), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ): Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ) All rose between 0.3% – 0.7% Netflix Inc (NASDAQ 🙂 rose 0.1% in advance of the release of its quarterly results later today.

Investors now look to the earnings results of companies more vulnerable to price increases, supply chain restrictions, and labor shortages after last week’s forecast beating results by big banks.

Cos Inc – Travelers (NYSE 🙂 climbed 2.7% as the profit of the property and casualty insurer beat expectations for its third-quarter profits.

It is still 1.3% from the September record high, but investors are hopeful that the market will continue to rise with a consistent flow of positive earnings reports.

“Should we have another solid week of results, this may inject S&P 500 bulls with enough confidence to venture into uncharted territory beyond its all-time high,” wrote Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM in a client note.

Analysts now expect S&P 500 earnings to show a 32% rise from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.

At 6:51 AM. ET was up 147 point, or 0.422%. ET also rose 20 points (or 0.45%) and were up 51.5 percent, or 0.34%.