Investing.com - Wall Street futures pointed to a lower open on Thursday as investors continued to digest President-elect Donald Trump’s first press conference and looked ahead to a barrage of appearances from the Federal Reserve (Fed) along with the release of weekly jobless claims.
The blue-chip Dow futures lost 41 points, or 0.21%, by 6:48AM ET (11:48GMT), the S&P 500 futures fell 6 points, or 0.28%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded down 13 points, or 0.26%.
Trump failed to address economic and fiscal policies in his first formal news conference on Wednesday, disappointing market participants who were looking for details on his proposals to boost the U.S. economy with infrastructure spending and tax reforms.
The greenback continued to chalk up losses on Thursday, hitting a one-month low against major rivals, as investors showed doubts over whether Trump’s campaign promises would materialize in formal policies.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, hit lows of 100.80, the weakest level since December 14.
The weak dollar pushed gold prices to a seven-week high on Thursday, with the precious metal hitting an intraday high of $1,207.05, a level not seen since November 23.
Those market moves came ahead of a wave of scheduled appearances from monetary policy officials that will begin at 8:30AM ET (13:30GMT) on Thursday with speeches from Chicago Fed president Charles Evans and Philadelphia chief Patrick Harker.
Evans will speak on the economy and monetary policy, while Harker will focus on the economic outlook.
That will be followed by an appearance by Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart at 12:30PM ET (17:30GMT) where he will repeat a January 9 speech in which he noted that some underlying fundamentals, including productivity, business investment, and labor force trends, have been restraining the pace of growth, but insisted that he believed the Fed would gradually increase rates this year.
St. Louis Fed president James Bullard will discuss the economy and monetary policy at 1:15PM ET (18:15GMT) while Dallas Fed chief Robert Kaplan will take the floor at 1:45PM ET (18:45GMT).
After the market close, Fed chair Janet Yellen will be addressing educators nationwide discussing the mission and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System between 7:00PM and 8:00PM ET (00:00-01:00GMT Friday) in her first official appearance for 2017.
After her remarks, Yellen will take questions from K-12 and post-secondary educators of economics, history, and related disciplines, who will be gathered at Federal Reserve Bank offices across the country.
Markets continued to price in the first rate hike this year for June and remained unconvinced by the Fed’s call for three increases 2017, putting the odds at just 32.1%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
On the economic data front, investors also looked ahead to weekly jobless claims along with import and export prices for December at 8:30AM (13:30GMT).
Meanwhile, oil prices continued to trade higher Thursday on the back of overnight gains after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said a day earlier that crude stocks unexpectedly rose by 4.1 million barrels to 483.1 million barrels last week.
The weak dollar also supported black gold as the dollar-priced commodity becomes cheaper for holders of other currencies.
Investors continued to keep an eye on the agreement between major oil producers to cut output, with the Saudi oil minister insisting that they had cut more than was required in the agreement and that OPEC would consider further output production in May as the initial deal came to an end.
U.S. crude futures gained 1.09% to $52.82 by 6:49AM ET (11:49GMT), while Brent oil advanced 1.23% to $55.78.