Investing.com - Wall Street futures pointed to a lower open on Thursday as buying enthusiasm began to lose steam and investors looked ahead to more Fed appearances and waited for weekly jobless claims ahead of Friday’s non-farm payrolls.
The blue-chip Dow futures inched down 6 points, or 0.03%, by 10:58AM GMT, or 7:58AM ET, the S&P 500 futures slipped 2 points, or 0.07%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 4 points, or 0.09%.
Investors continued to adjust positions based on expectations for the future path of the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) monetary policy. After Fed chair Janet Yellen’s dovish speech on Tuesday, the market disregards the possibility of a rate hike arriving before November or December which are showing odds of 50% and 62%, respectively, according to CME. Fed funds futures don’t price in a full quarter point increase until March 17.
In this light, traders will continue to take cues from remarks made by Fed officials on Thursday as Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, San Francisco Fed President John Williams and New York Fed President William Dudley are due to speak throughout the day.
The dollar remained unable to recover on Thursday, trading lower against major rivals. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.23% at 94.57, near the previous session’s five-month low of 94.56.
On Thursday’s economic calendar, traders will focus on release the weekly report on initial jobless claims at 13:30GMT, or 8:30AM ET, followed by data on business activity in the Chicago region at 14:45GMT or 9:45AM ET.
The former data point will set the stage for Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payrolls report. The consensus forecast is that the data will also show jobs growth of 205,000 in March, the unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 4.9%, while average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.2%.
The data will play a key role in determining the Fed’s take on the U.S. economy prior to their two-meeting on April 26-27.
Meanwhile, traders also focused on commodities on Thursday, with gold on track for a first quarter gain of 15%, its best such performance since the third quarter of 1986. Gold for June delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange tacked on $7.10, or 0.58%, to trade at $1,235.70 a troy ounce by 11:00AM GMT, or 7:00AM ET.
Oil prices, for their part, traded mixed as a report showed on Wednesday that OPEC had increased output moderately in March. Wednesday’s weekly inventory data initially sparked a 4% jump in crude oil after the 2.3 million stockpile build was less than expected. However, it should be noted that inventories reached an all-time of 534.8 million barrels.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.39% to $38.17 by 11:02AM GMT, or 7:02AM ET, while Brent oil gained 0.22% to $40.14.
In blue-chip company news, IBM (NYSE:IBM) was reported to announce another cloud-related acquisition. According to Re/code, the computer giant reached a deal to purchase Bluewolf Group for just over $200 million.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) was also in the news after Wednesday’s close. Despite having officially announced 4,000 layoffs, Reuters’ sources said the company was actually planning to cut its workforce by double that number.