Investing.com – After the major U.S. benchmarks closed at record highs in the prior session, Wall Street futures indicated a move higher on Friday as investors looked ahead to data that will measure the state of the American consumer in the third quarter.
The blue-chip Dow futures edged forward 9 points, or 0.05%, by 11:02AM GMT, or 7:02AM ET, the S&P 500 futures inched up 1 point, or 0.05%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures also traded up 1 point, or 0.03%.
With the U.S. consumer having spurred most of the growth in the American economy in the second quarter, market participants were looking ahead to the first indications of how they were faring at the start of the second half.
July retail sales will be released at 12:30GMT, or 08:30AM ET, Friday. The consensus forecast is that the report will show retail sales rose 0.4% last month, after increasing 0.6% in June. Core sales are forecast to inch up 0.2%, after gaining 0.7% a month earlier.
That report will be followed by the preliminary Michigan consumer sentiment for August at 14:00GMT, or 10:00AM ET. Expectations are for it to rise to 91.5, from the prior month’s reading of 90.0.
Meanwhile, the dollar was mostly unchanged against major rivals on Friday, supported by a tick up in expectations for a possible rate hike this year.
San Francisco Fed president John Williams said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Thursday that the Fed should raise rates this year because of improving labor market conditions and the likelihood that inflation is heading higher.
According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, Fed fund futures discounted a 51.9% chance of tightening for the December meeting as of close of trade on Thursday.
On the company front, focus would continue to center on department store earnings.
Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M) and Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE:KSS) kicked off a rally on Thursday with better-than-expected numbers.
Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) followed suit after the close with a decline in comparable store sales that was not as bad as feared. While waiting for the U.S. open, its shares had jumped nearly 11% in Thursday’s after-hours market.
JC Penney Company Inc Holding (NYSE:JCP) was set to provide its own second quarter numbers on Friday before the bell.
Elsewhere, China’s industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment for July all came in with weaker readings that missed consensus earlier on Friday, indicating a weak start to the third quarter for the world’s second largest economy.
Despite the slowdown, investors appeared to hope that the weak readings would spur policy easing and Shanghai stocks closed with gains of 1.7%.
European stocks, for their part, showed cautious trade with mixed readings. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 inched forward 0.03%, though Germany’s DAX traded down 0.17%. In London, the FTSE 100 edged forward 0.02%.
Meanwhile, oil took a breather on Friday in some choppy trade after a huge surge on Thursday. Crude was on track for a weekly gain of close to 4%.
Hopes for possible action among OPEC members in an informal meeting on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in September and a market rebalancing by 2017 supported prices, along with Genscape data on Thursday that showed a draw in U.S. inventories in the week up to August 9.
Market participants looked ahead to data from oilfield services provider Baker Hughes to be released later on Friday. The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. last week increased by seven to 381, the sixth consecutive weekly rise and the ninth increase in 10 weeks.
U.S. crude futures inched up 0.02% to $43.50 by 11:03AM GMT, or 7:03AM ET, while Brent oil slipped 0.26% to $45.92.