(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click or type LIVE/ in a news window.)*Activist investor Elliott Management takes stake in
Salesforce*Baker Hughes falls on missing Q4 profit estimates*Futures up: Dow 0.24%, S&P 0.16%, Nasdaq 0.20%Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes were set to open
higher at the start of another big week for corporate earnings,
with Salesforce leading gains on Monday following news that
Elliott Management had acquired a stake.A slew of earnings in the coming weeks will also test the
recent bounce in certain technology and growth stocks that took
a large hit last year. The tech-focused Nasdaq index was
the only major Wall Street benchmark that ended the previous
week higher.Concerns of a possible recession amid a high interest rate
environment have hit growth-related sectors, driving major tech
companies such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc
and Alphabet Inc to lay off thousands of
employees.Companies which make up more than half the S&P 500 index's
market value will report earnings in the next two weeks,
with Microsoft, the second-largest U.S. firm by market value,
posting results on Tuesday, Tesla Inc and IBM
on Wednesday and Intel on Thursday.Analysts now expect year-over-year fourth-quarter earnings
from S&P 500 companies to decline 2.9%, according to IBES
Refinitiv data, compared with a 1.6% decline at the beginning of
the year."It's going to be a situation where I'm expecting to hear
weakness, not strength from corporate America," said Adam
Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York."It's much better to lower expectations and then beat weak
expectations then it is to raise your guidance or have strong
expectations and then miss."Investors also await January manufacturing and
fourth-quarter GDP data for a clearer picture of the impact the
Federal Reserve's aggressive rate hikes have had on the economy.Data recently has signaled cooling inflation but has also
highlighted a tight labor market that offers the central bank
room to stick with its aggressive policy tightening.Shares of cloud-based software firm Salesforce Inc
rose 4.7% in premarket trading to lead gains among Dow
components after activist investor Elliott Management Corp made
a multi-billion-dollar investment in the company, according to
people familiar with the matter.At 8:39 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 79 points, or
0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 6.25 points, or 0.16%,
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 23.5 points, or 0.2%.Among other stocks, Baker Hughes Co slid 1.4% on
missing fourth-quarter profit estimates, hit by component
shortages and supply chain disruptions.Xylem Inc fell 8.3% on its acquisition of water
treatment solutions firm Evoqua Water Technologies Corp
in a $7.42 billion deal. Evoqua shares jumped 13.7%.Qualcomm Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc
climbed above 2% each, after brokerage Barclays upgraded the
chipmakers to "overweight" from "equal-weight".Western Digital Corp rose 4.0% on a report that the
memory chip maker could merge with Japan's Kioxia Holdings.
(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Johann M Cherian in
Bengaluru
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)