Published - Mar 11, 2022 @ 4:32 PM (EET)

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After Russian President Vladimir Putin said there were "certain positive shifts" in talks with Ukraine, hours after saying he would bring in fighters from the Middle East, U.S. stock futures jumped on Friday.

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The news lifted the mood at the end of a roller-coaster week marked by concerns about geopolitical tensions and surging oil prices.

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Keith Temperton, a sales trader at Forte Securities, said, "At this stage, we're in a headline market, and that is very evident.  One negative headline comes out everything sells off, one slightly positive headline comes out everything skies it."

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Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) added 1.6%, and Citigroup (NYSE:C) added 1.7% in premarket trading to lead gains among big banks and mega-cap growth companies.

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Energy shares dropped, with Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) down 0.4% and Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) down 2.2%.

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In nine out of the ten past sessions, the S&P 500 energy sector has risen and gained 38.5% year-to-date on soaring crude prices.  Earlier this week, oil scaled at $139 a barrel on supply fears.

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However, the soaring oil prices grazed into fears of higher inflation and slowing economic growth when global central banks seek to tighten their monetary policies of the pandemic era.

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Wall Street slid on Thursday, and all the major indexes are tracking a weekly decline of over 1.3% each, with the blue-chip Dow eyeing its fifth straight weekly loss.

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Contracts on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 Indexes added at least 0.9% each, and Gold and Treasuries fell while the dollar erased its gains.

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Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) slipped 3.5% after the legacy software firm posted a neutral third-quarter profit due to higher spending for its cloud services.

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EV maker Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN) tumbled 10.8% after the company warned its planned production could be cut by half to 25,000 vehicles in 2022 amid supply-chain issues.

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