US pre-open: Futures in the green ahead of jobless claims data

Wall Street futures were in the green ahead of the bell on Thursday ahead of this week's jobless claims report from the Labor Department.

As of 1225 BST, Dow Jones futures were up 0.16%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.22% and 0.23% firmer, respectively.

The Dow closed 323.73 points lower on Wednesday as traders thumbed over earnings from General Motors and some key jobs data from the ADP.

Thursday's main focus will be an update on the current US employment picture, with the Department of Labor's latest weekly initial jobless claims data coming at 1330 BST. Economists expect the report to show a drop in weekly jobless claims to 383,000 in the week ended 31 July, down from 400,000 in the prior week.

Also in focus, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was broadly flat at around 1.18% on Thursday after having briefly fallen below 1.13% in the previous session.

On the macro front, Challenger Grey & Christmas job cuts data for July will be published at 1230 BST, while the weekly jobless claims data and June's trade balance figures will follow at 1330 BST.

In the corporate space, both Roku and Uber slipped in pre-market following their latest quarterly results, while Etsy fell as much as 12% after its full-year guidance seemed to indicate that the Covid-19 fuelled commerce boom was coming to an end.

Robinhood shares were also firmly in the red in pre-market trading after closing the previous session 50.41% higher, while Moderna shares were broadly flat after revealing it had swung to a quarterly profit.

Bombardier, Eventbrite and Sea World will all issue updates on their most recent trading quarters during the course of the day.