By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are set to open slightly lower Thursday after recent gains, amid concerns that a potential second coronavirus wave could stunt the economic recovery.
At 7:10 AM ET (1110 GMT), S&P 500 Futures traded 10 points, or 0.4%, lower, Nasdaq Futures down 8 points, or 0.1%. The Dow Futures contract fell 114 points, or 0.4%.
The Dow snapped a three-day winning streak Wednesday, although the tech-heavy Nasdaq powered on, as a rise in infections in a number of states, including Arizona, Florida, and Texas, stoked fears that social distancing restrictions could be reimposed, dealing a fresh blow to the economy.
That said, these indices are still on course to post their fourth winning week out of the last five, helped by hefty amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus and nascent signs of an upturn.
The Bank of England added to this stimulus earlier Thursday, increasing its quantitative easing program by an additional 100 billion pounds, while the European Central Bank carried out what will be its largest ever injection of liquidity, dishing out 1.3 trillion euros in long-term loans at rates as low as -1.0%.
With this in mind, attention will turn to the release of the weekly initial jobless claims data at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT), the most up to date gauge of U.S. employment trends.
These claims are expected to be 1.3 million for the week ending June 13, down from 1.54 million reported the prior week, continuing a downward trend as the Covid-19 lockdowns continue to ease. Continuing jobless claims are expected to be 19.8 million, compared with 20.9 million the prior week.
Additionally, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index for June is expected to come in at a negative 23, which would be an improvement from the negative 43 recorded for May. The negative 56 recorded in April was the lowest level in 40 years.
In corporate news, tech giants-such as-Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) are likely to be in focus after the United States administration decided to pull out of negotiations on a global solution to taxing digital services late Wednesday.
Hertz (NYSE:HTZ) stock dropped 9.5% after the car rental firm pulled its controversial $500 million share offering after security regulators vowed to review it.
T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) stock gained 1.3% premarket after it predicted a healthy rise in customers this year after the closing bell on Wednesday.
Oil prices rebounded Thursday, despite a bigger-than-expected build in U.S. crude inventories and a downbeat report from OPEC on the world oil market.
U.S. crude prices rose 0.7% to $38.24 a barrel, while Brent Futures climbed 1.1% to $41.16.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.3% to $1,730.40/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1244, flat on the day.