Investing.com - Wall Street futures pointed to a flat open on Thursday, while investors looked ahead to economic data on the labor market and service sector activity
The blue-chip Dow futures inched up 1 point, or 0.01%, by 6:57AM ET (11:57GMT), the S&P 500 futures slipped 1 point, or 0.04%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures gave up 2 points, or 0.08%.
Key U.S. reports later in the day should provide further evidence if the world’s largest economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs in the months ahead.
ADP payrolls data is released at 8:15AM ET (13:15GMT). Economists expect 170,000 private sector payrolls, just below the 178,000 consensus for total December nonfarm payrolls, expected on Friday.
Weekly jobless claims are released at 8:30AM ET, while Markit services PMI is released at 9:45AM ET and ISM non-manufacturing data is released at 10:00AM ET.
Both reports will arrive the day before the government releases its employment report for December on Friday. The consensus forecast is that the data will show jobs growth of 175,000, following an increase of 178,000 in November, while the unemployment rate is expected to inch up to 4.7% from 4.6%.
Wednesday saw the release of the Federal Reserve (Fed) minutes that pointed to a number of risks that could change the path for interest rates.
About half the policymakers factored in expectations in December that incoming President Donald Trump would implement expansionary fiscal policies when they evaluated that there could be three rate hikes in 2017.
On the labor market front, the minutes showed that "many participants judged that the risk of a sizable undershooting of the longer-run normal unemployment rate had increased somewhat and that the Committee might need to raise the federal funds rate more quickly."
Overall, Fed members emphasized the “considerable uncertainty” surrounding fiscal policy changes.
Traders continued to price in only two rate hikes this year with only a 35.5% chance of a third, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
In the meantime, the U.S. dollar stepped further away from a 14-year peak against a basket of major currencies on Thursday,
Meanwhile, oil prices held steady on Thursday, as market players awaited fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on oil supplies at 11:00AM ET (16:00GMT) Thursday, amid analyst expectations for a decline of 2.2 million barrels. The report comes out one day later than usual due to the holiday last Monday.
After markets closed Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories fell by 7.4 million barrels in the week ended December 30.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.90% to $53.74 at by 6:58AM ET (11:58GMT), while Brent oil traded up 0.92% to $56.98.
On the company front, shares of Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) were up 0.9% in pre-market trade after reporting a jump of 5% in December net sales.
Monsanto (NYSE:MON), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) and Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) were among companies scheduled to release quarterly earnings before the market open while PriceSmart (NASDAQ:PSMT), Ruby Tuesday Inc (NYSE:RT), Helen of Troy Ltd (NASDAQ:HELE) and MidWestOne Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ:MOFG) were among firms set to report after the close.