Investing.com - U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open on Thursday, as investors digested earnings and looked ahead to a second day of congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen later in the session.
During early morning hours in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures tacked on 56 points, or 0.3%, the S&P 500 futures added 7 points, or 0.3%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures increased 18 points, or 0.4%.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to address the Senate Banking Committee Thursday morning as she wraps up her two-day semi-annual Congressional testimony.
In prepared remarks released before her testimony to the House Financial Services committee on Wednesday, Yellen reiterated that the central bank was on track to raise interest rates by the end of the year if the economy continues to evolve as expected.
U.S. data will also be in focus. The U.S. is to release weekly data on initial jobless claims at 8:30AM ET, followed by the Philadelphia Fed report on manufacturing activity and the NAHB homebuilders' survey, both due out at 10:00AM.
Weekly jobless claims are forecast to have dropped to 285,000 from 297,000, while the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is expected to fall to 12.0 in July from 15.2 in June.
In earnings news, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) saw shares rally 3% after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings after Wednesday's closing bell.
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) soared 12% after the online streaming service reported upbeat earnings late Wednesday and said it added a better-than-expected 3.28 million streaming subscribers in the three months ended June 30.
eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), Philip Morris (NYSE:PM), Blackstone (NYSE:BX) and Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) are due to report quarterly earnings ahead of the open on Thursday, while Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), Mattel (NASDAQ:MAT) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) are expected to report after the closing bell.
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