U.S. stock index futures ticked higher Thursday after TSMC delivered a knockout quarter, sparking a fresh rally in chipmakers, while Wall Street braces for earnings from the financial heavyweights.

The bounce follows a bruising session that left the major indexes reeling. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their ‍sharpest drops of the year so far, while the Dow pared midday losses to finish essentially unchanged.

Chip stocks ‍such as Nvidia rose 1.5%, while Broadcom and Micron gained 2.5% and 3.5%, respectively, in premarket trading on Thursday.

Chipmaking tool companies Applied Materials and Lam Research rose 8.3% each, and KLA gained 6.3%.

The gains ⁠came on the back of Taiwan's TSMC, the world's main producer of advanced AI chips, strong results and a sturdy growth outlook that signaled that more U.S. manufacturing capacity is on the way.

U.S.-listed shares of TSMC jumped 6.7%.

BlackRock, the world's largest ​asset manager, gained 2% after reporting a higher fourth-quarter profit, as a rally in markets lifted fee income and pushed its assets under management to a record.

Goldman Sachs fell 0.2% and Morgan Stanley rose 0.9% before their quarterly reports that would wrap up earnings from major Wall Street lenders.

Financial stocks have come ‍under pressure this week on worries over the impact of a proposed one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%, even ⁠as some of the banking giants posted robust profit growth.

Investors are also rotating out of richly valued tech and other growth stocks to more unloved parts of the market that hold attractive valuations.

S&P 500 materials and industrials indexes clinched new peaks, while real estate and energy hit multi-month highs this week, as the tech-laden S&P 500 slid to a two-week low.

The S&P 400 mid-cap and Russell 2000 small also clinched new peaks ⁠this week.

At 8:30 a.m. EST, Dow E-minis were down 22 points, or 0.04%, S&P 500 E-minis were ⁠up 27 points, or 0.39%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 226 points, or 0.88%.

With geopolitical risks and economic indicators having little sway over equities, investors are zeroing ‍in on fundamentals as the fourth-quarter earnings season gets underway, which may reveal whether the market's historic rally still has legs.

Analysts expect S&P 500 companies to report 8.8% average growth in ‌quarterly profit from a year ago, according to LSEG IBES data.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department's data at 8:30 a.m. ET is expected to show weekly jobless claims rose to 215,000 in the week ended January 5.

Traders are still pricing in at least two rate cuts ⁠by year-end, according to ​LSEG.

Markets will also be closely watching ‍for fresh signals from policymakers, including Federal Reserve board Governor Michael Barr and regional Fed chiefs Raphael Bostic, Tom Barkin, and Jeffrey Schmid. They are scheduled to speak later in the day.

"We expect the labor market to ‍remain soft, and two additional payroll reports ahead of the March policy meeting are likely to be followed by a 25-basis-point interest rate cut, which should continue to support stocks," UBS analysts said.