U.S. stock futures are higher in premarket trading after strong bank earnings pushed aside investor risks both at home and abroad as a U.S. government shutdown heads into its third week and escalating trade tensions with China persist.

Stocks saw choppy trading on Wednesday, but both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 ended in the green as investors were encouraged by strong earnings from major banks. The shutdown enters its third week with little progress but traders continue to look past the concerns as earnings remain better than expected.

• Oil (/CL) – Oil prices are up 1% near $58.90 a barrel after U.S. President Donald Trump said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged his country would stop buying oil from Russia, which supplies about one-third of its imports. API reports that crude inventories rose 7.4M barrels last week. Gasoline inventories rose 3M barrels.

• Gold (/GC) – Gold Futures are up over 1% near $4260 and extended its rally to a fresh record high, as investors turned to the safe-haven asset due to U.S.-China trade tensions and the U.S. government shutdown, with prospects of interest rate cuts further boosting demand.

• Bitcoin (/BTC) – The Crypto Future is slightly lower near 111,500 in premarket trading. Bitcoin is down 12% from last week’s all-time high.

• VIX – The CBOE Volatility Index was down nearly 1% on Wednesday and settled at 20.64 as stocks finished the volatile session higher.

• U.S. Dollar (/DX) – The dollar is slightly lower to 98.4.

• JPMorgan upgrades Las Vegas Sands (LVS) to Overweight from Neutral

• Wells Fargo upgrades T-Mobile (TMUS) to Overweight from Equal Weight

• Seaport Research upgrades TKO Group (TKO) to Buy from Neutral

• Bernstein downgrades Lululemon (LULU) to Market Perform from Outperform

• JPMorgan downgrades Lithium Americas (LAC) to Underweight from Neutral

• TD Cowen downgrades Molina Healthcare (MOH) to Hold from Buy

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