Investing.com – U.S. futures pointed to lower open bell on Wall Street on Thursday as the Federal Reserve looked poised to continue gradually increasing interest rates.
The S&P 500 futures fell 9 points or 0.33% to 2,807.0 as of 6:50 AM ET (10:50 GMT) while Dow futures were down 69 points, or 0.27%, to 25,667.0. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures decreased 32 points, or 0.44%, to 7,281.0.
The hawkish Fed minutes showed that while the central bank had some doubts about the economy, it still planned to gradually increase interest rates in December and beyond.
Chances of a Fed rate hike at its meeting in December were priced in at 86.4%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
Endocyte Inc (NASDAQ:ECYT) was among the top gainers in premarket trading, surging 48.46% on news that the cancer drugmaker is being bought by Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG (SIX:NOVN) for $2.1 billion. Nokia (NYSE:NOK) rose 2.36% while Praxair (NYSE:PX) increased 5.13%.
Elsewhere Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) dipped 0.46% while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) lost 0.78% and Chinese e-commerce site Jd.Com Inc Adr (NASDAQ:JD) inched down 0.34%.
In earnings news, American Express (NYSE:AXP) and PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) are just some of the many companies expected to report financial results on Thursday.
On the data front, weekly jobless claims numbers are released at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT), while the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index comes out at the same time.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.08% to $1,226.40 a troy ounce while crude oil futures decreased 1.00% to $69.05 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.10% to 95.25.