US pre-open: Futures point to low open ahead of stream of earnings and economic data

LONDON (ShareCast) - US stock futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Thursday, as investors awaited a raft of earnings from some major firms such as American Express, Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) . The Dow Jones Industrial Average is expected to open approximately 68 points down, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are expected to begin the session 10 and 21 points down respectively.

On Wednesday, better-than-expected earnings and a strong rebound in oil prices pushed the benchmarks high.

"There's been a lot of attention on the current earnings season and what impact the dollar, weather and oil prices had on profits," said Oanda's senior market analyst Craig Erlam.

"The biggest concern is the strength of the dollar and to what extent it has eroded away at overseas profits, especially as it is only likely to get stronger in the next 12 months as a result of the diverging policies of the Federal Reserve and other central banks." Four Fed speakers will hold a speech on Thursday, with Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, a voting member of the FOMC, scheduled to speak to business leaders in Palm Beach, Florida at 18:00 BST.

At 18:10 BST and 18:30 BST respectively, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will give a speech on the economic outlook in New York, while Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren will speak in London.

Mester and Rosengren, both non-voting members of the FOMC, will be followed at 20:00 BST by Fed's Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, who is set to talk about inflation at the International Monetary Fund.

The economic calendar sees weekly jobless claims due out at 13:30 BST, with analysts expecting the report to show 281,000 Americans filed for jobless claims last week, a figure that would be unchanged from the week before.

Housing starts for March are due at the same time, with the Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index released at 15:00 BST.

Netflix (Xetra: 552484 - news) was making waves in pre-market trading after the internet television network said late on Wednesday that it added 4.88m subscribers in the first quarter, more than the 4.05m analysts had forecast.

Philip Morris gained 4% ahead of the bell after the tobacco giant beat profit and sales estimates and raised its full-year outlook, while Goldman Sachs climbed 0.45% after better-than-expected results.

Blackstone (NYSE: BX - news) rose over 3% after its first quarter revenue jumped 66% year-on-year, while its earnings per share rose from 40 cents per share to $1.65 per share.

Going the other way, SanDisk (NasdaqGS: SNDK - news) plunged over 8% ahead of the bell the memory-chip maker reported a drop in profit late on Wednesday.

McDonald's slid just over 1% as the operator of its franchise in Japan said it expected to post deep annual losses, while 131 stores in the country will be shut.

American Express and toy-maker Mattel (NasdaqGS: MAT - news) will report after the close.

Oil prices relinquished the previous session's gains, with West Texas Intermediate losing 1.86% to $55.36 a barrel, while Brent crude fell by the same margin to $55.36 a barrel.

The dollar shed 0.5% against both euro and pound but was largely stable against the yen, while gold futures climbed 0.55%.