By Dhirendra Tripathi

After positive earnings reports by Ford and Merck, Investing.com soared to record heights on Thursday Caterpillar (NYSE:

Nothing could dampen investors’ enthusiasm, not even data that showed U.S. economic output slowed dramatically in the third quarter. 

Ford Motor Company (NYSE:) stock rose 11% after beating expectations and raising its forecast for the full year, while Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:) also raised its forecast and said it could have $7 billion in sales from its anti Covid pill, if approved by regulators.

Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at an annualized rate of 2% last quarter. However, this was slowed by rising Covid infections which have impacted global supply and manufacturing.

Americans filed new claims last week for unemployment benefits, showing improvement in the U.S. job market.

Reuters stated that businesses are likely to increase profits by 37.6% over the previous quarter. This is an improvement on the 29.4% expected rise at the beginning.

Friday will see spending data and inflation. These are the three factors that may impact tomorrow’s markets:

1. Chevron Earnings

Two reports will be delivered by Big Oil this Friday. Chevron Corp (NYSE:)’s third-quarter profit per share is seen at $2.21 on revenue of $40.27 billion, according to analysts tracked by Investing.com.

2. Exxon earnings

ExxonMobil (NYSE 🙂 expects to post third quarter revenue of $71.02 Billion and earnings per share of $1.56.

3. Consumption for personal use

The core price index, which excludes food and energy costs and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, is likely to have risen 0.2% month-on-month in September, slightly slower than August’s 0.3%. It is expected to rise 3.7% year-over-year. Data will be available at 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT).