Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a third day of gains on Thursday, the last day of trading for the second quarter, as financial markets continued to eye the developments on the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), known as a Brexit, and traders looked ahead to key U.S. data and an appearance by a member of the Federal Reserve (Fed).
The blue-chip Dow futures gained 46 points, or 0.26%, by 10:50AM GMT, or 6:50AM ET, the S&P 500 futures rose 5 points, or 0.24%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded up 8 points, or 0.18%.
The S&P 500 was set to continue its recovery after having recouped more than half the losses induced by concern over the Brexit impact.
With the close on Wednesday, the world’s principal index moved back into positive territory for 2016 and was up 0.5% for the quarter.
Still, it would need to reach 2,113 to fully erase the losses incurred from the British decision to exit the EU.
While investors continued to digest the political and economic fallout from the U.K. referendum, they looked ahead to key U.S. data later in the day to gauge the health of the world's largest economy.
Weekly jobless claims data will be out at 12:30GMT, or 8:30AM ET, with market participants anxious to gauge the strength of the American labor market.
Afterwards, data on business activity in the Chicago region is due at 13:45GMT or 9:45AM ET.
Meanwhile, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard is due to speak about the U.S. economy and monetary policy at the Society of Business Economists Annual Dinner, in London at 17:30GMT, or 1:00PM ET.
Bullard is the self-proclaimed most dovish member of the U.S. monetary authority having confessed that he was the dot in the latest round of Fed projections that predicted only one rate hike for the next two-and-a-half years.
Market players all but ruled out further rate hikes by the Fed this year in the aftermath of Britain’s shock vote to leave the EU with expectations pointing for the monetary authority to hold steady for the rest of the year.
In fact, Fed fund futures currently price in the small possibility of a rate cut at the July meeting with odds at 2.4%.
Meanwhile, investors pocketed gains in oil on Wednesday after crude posted its largest one-day gain in more than two months in the prior session.
Still, crude was on track to pocket its biggest quarterly advance since 2009, rising nearly 30% in the last three months as the decrease in U.S. supply added to speculation that market were rebalancing.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.88% to $49.44 by 10:52AM GMT, or 6:52AM ET, while Brent oil traded down 0.74% to $50.94.
In company news, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) was gearing up for its annual meeting on Thursday where investors will likely ask the tech firm for an update on the progress in the sale of its core internet business.
The Fed gave the green light for Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to proceed with a 33% hike in its dividend payment as well as its $3.5 billion in planned buybacks.
Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ), Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) and Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) were among companies set to report earnings before the opening bell, while Micron (NASDAQ:MU) will publish after the market close.