Shreyashi and Bansari Kamdar

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks index futures dropped on Friday, as major lenders such JPMorgan and others pushed the price lower. Wells Fargo The fourth quarter earnings season began at the NYSE: with mixed results. However, big tech companies continued to decline after a brutal selloff.

JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:) tumbled 3.0% in premarket trading on reporting weaker performance at its trading arm, even as it beat earnings expectations for the fourth quarter.

Wells Fargo & Co, on the other hand, gained 1.8% after posting a greater-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter profit.

BlackRock Inc, an asset manager (NYSE:), posted fourth quarter profits that were higher than expected. Its shares dropped 0.1%.

According to Refinitiv’s IBES data, the year-over-year earnings growth of companies was lower than in the previous three quarters. However, it still stood at 22.4%.

The S&P 500 financial sector is up nearly 6% since the start of this year, outperforming the S&P 500, amid expectations of banks benefiting from interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and firming Treasury yields.

Financial sector also has benefited from the shift from economically-sensitive sectors to growth sectors like technology, consumer discretionary and consumer discretionary.

Meta, a megacap company that grows fast including Apple Inc (NASDAQ), Amazon.com Inc(NASDAQ:), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ) and Tesla (NASDAQ 🙂 all fell to as low as 0.6% one day following a selloff caused by Fed speakers who emphasized inflation and rate increases.

7.11 AM ET ET were down 49 points or 0.144% and down 8 points or 0.17% respectively. They were also down 44.25 point, or 0.299%.

U.S. casino operators Las Vegas Sands MGM Resorts, Wynn Resorts, Wynn Resorts and Melco Resorts all saw increases of between 3.5% to 10.3% following Macau’s restriction on the number of casino operators that can operate.

Later in the day investors will pay attention to retail sales data. Analysts anticipate it to remain stable in December following a 0.3% rise in November.