By Dhirendra Tripathi

-- Stocks continued their wild ride this week, only in the other direction. After triple-digit gains earlier in the session, stocks turned downward heading into the close.

The Federal Reserve as expected left rates unchanged but signaled its willingness to begin raising them in March.

It marks an aggressive shift in policy. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell had previously downplayed how soon rate hikes would follow the end of the tapering.

Stubbornly high inflation has forced the Fed to rethink its stance. The Fed has flagged "supply and demand imbalances" as the key driver of elevated levels of inflation.

The improvement in the labor market has also served as another catalyst for the Fed to double up on efforts to combat inflation after the unemployment rate dropped under 4% to pre-pandemic levels.

Wall Street is betting that a potential rate hike in March will be followed up by a further three rates this year.

Earnings continue to roll out, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) coming after tonight’s closing bell.

Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow:

1. Apple earnings

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s first-quarter revenue is seen at a record $118.68 billion and profit per share at $1.89, according to analysts tracked by .

2. Visa earnings

Visa Inc Class A (NYSE:V) is expected to report a profit per share of $1.70 in the first quarter on revenue of $6.79 billion. After American Express (NYSE:AXP) reported huge spending in the recent quarter, analysts will be looking for Visa’s view on the rebound.

3. Comcast earnings

Comcast Corp (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is seen clocking a revenue of $29.76 billion in the fourth quarter with profit per share coming in at 73 cents. Analysts will want to hear an update about its streaming efforts.

-- staff contributed to this report