By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening mixed Thursday, consolidating near record levels at the start of the second half of the year and ahead of the release of weekly jobless claims data.
Impulses were also coming from the oil market, where crude pushed higher in response to the latest newswire reports suggesting that OPEC and its allies will approve only a gradual increase in supply over the rest of the year.
At 7:05 AM ET (1105 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 15 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded largely flat, while Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 35 points, or 0.3%.
The major indices registered strong gains for the first six months of the year on Wednesday. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 12.7%, the broad-based S&P 500 rallied 14.4% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 12.5%.
The S&P 500 closed Wednesday at a record level, the Nasdaq Composite is on the verge of its record, and the DJIA is just 1.7% below its all-time high.
Wall Street has, of course, been boosted by substantial fiscal and monetary stimulus, but a successful vaccination program, which has allowed the majority of the country to re-open, healthy economic growth and strong corporate earnings have also helped.
Eyes will turn before the open to the release of the U.S. weekly jobless claims, at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT). Consensus is for 390,000 new claims, down from 411,000 last week, while continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline total, are seen falling to 3.382 million from 3.39 million.
In corporate news, Micron (NASDAQ:MU) will be in the spotlight after warning it will have to wait until 2024 for a key upgrade to its chipmaking technology. Chinese ride-hailing company Didi (NYSE:DIDI) has its second day of trading after Wednesday’s volatile debut on the New York Stock Exchange, while pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots (NASDAQ:WBA) reports its third-quarter fiscal 2021 results.
CureVac (NASDAQ:CVAC) stock plunged 13% in Thursday’s premarket trading after the German drugmaker said final test data showed its experimental vaccine against COVID-19 was only 48% effective in preventing the disease.
Crude oil prices pushed higher Thursday, with investors awaiting news from a meeting of top producers over future production levels.
By 7:05 AM ET, U.S. crude was up 2.3% at $75.18 a barrel, climbing above $75 for the first time since October 2018, while Brent was up 2% at $76.12.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, is set to meet later Thursday to discuss its production levels, principally for the next month.
The group is already easing supply cuts between May and July by 2.1 million barrels per day, and now has to decide whether to continue its current cautious approach to lifting output levels or to increase supply substantially given the high oil prices.