Investing.com - U.S. stock futures pointed to a steady open on Friday, as investors remained cautious ahead of the release of U.S. economic reports, as well as a string of earnings later in the day.
Ahead of the open, the Dow 30 futures pointed to a 0.01% dip, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.02% uptick, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.08% loss.
U.S. equities declined on Thursday after the Labor Department reported that the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending April 4 fell by 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 300,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 332,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to decline to 320,000.
Continuing jobless claims declined to 2.77 million, the lowest since January 2008.
The auto sector was expected to be active, after General Motors (NYSE:GM) said it anticipates taking a first-quarter charge of $1.3 billion primarily for the cost of recall-related repairs that may lead to the automaker’s first quarterly loss in more than four years.
The news sent GM shares dropped 0.45% in pre-market trade.
Internet-related companies were also slated to move, following reports Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) hired a Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) executive for the role of chief financial officer, in a move to turn around the struggling social games developer by focusing on mobile titles.
Zynga shares jumped 1.23% in early trading.
Elsewhere, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), down 0.09% after hours, and Juniper Networks said some of their networking products are susceptible to the Heartbleed Web-security flaw.
The encryption bug, which was recently discovered by researchers at Google, has prompted companies and government agencies to seek fixes to block hackers from gaining access to user names, passwords and other sensitive information.
Other stocks likely to be in focus included Jp Morgan Chase (JFTTL.PK), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Fastenal (NASDAQ:FAST), scheduled to report earnings reports later in the day.
Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were sharply lower. The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 tumbled 1.15%, France’s CAC 40 plummeted 1.22%, Germany's DAX lost 1.44%, while Britain's FTSE 100 declined 1.30%.
During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index retreated 0.79%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index plunged 2.38%.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on producer price inflation, as well as the preliminary report on the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index.