By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening marginally lower Thursday, handing back some of the previous session’s gains, with investors cautious ahead of the release of key retail sales and unemployment data, and increasingly unsettled by a European energy crisis that is pulling global prices higher.
At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 15 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded 5 points, or 0.1%, lower, and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 30 points, or 0.2%.
The broad-based S&P 500 index gained 0.9% Wednesday, its biggest daily increase in more than two weeks, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced more than 200 points, or 0.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%.
However, those gains have been something of an outlier so far in September, with the Dow down 1.6%, the S&P 500 off just under 1% and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.5%.
While September is traditionally a weak month, there have been a number of specific influences weighing on sentiment, including the highly-transmissible delta variant, regulatory concerns in China, supply chain difficulties and the possibility of central banks reining in monetary stimulus. Some money has also been moving out of established names for redeployment in a spate of IPOs, such as Dutch Bros (NYSE:BROS) and Thoughtworks.
There’s more economic data Thursday for investors to study for clues as the Federal Reserve prepares for its monetary policy-setting meeting next week.
Retail sales, at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), are expected to have weakened again in August, dropping 0.8% on the month after July’s 1.1% fall. At the same time, weekly initial jobless claims are seen rising to 330,000 last week, from 310,000 for the week before.
In corporate news, Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock rose slightly premarket after the drugmaker revealed a large trial showed the protection its Covid-19 vaccine offers wanes over time, supporting the case for booster doses.
Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) will also be in the spotlight after the video game company announced late Wednesday that its highly-anticipated game Battlefield 2042 game is set for a worldwide launch in November, countering fears that it would be put off to next year.
Crude prices slightly weakened Thursday, consolidating after the previous session’s strong gains on the back of a sharp drawdown in crude stocks in the United States, to their lowest level in over three years.
Crude inventories fell by 6.4 million barrels last week, according to the Energy Information Administration late Wednesday, as refiners in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico struggled to recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Ida.
By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.2% lower at $72.50 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.1% to $57.37. Both contracts gained around 3% on Wednesday, and are up nearly 50% year-to-date.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.8% to $1,780.20/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% lower at 1.1776.