© Reuters
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com — U.S. stocks are seen opening slightly lower Thursday, consolidating after the previous session’s sharp Jerome Powell-inspired gains ahead of the release of more important economic data.
At 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT), the contract was down 70 points, or 0.2%, traded 5 points, or 0.1%, lower and dropped 20 points, or 0.2%.
The blue chip gained over 700 points, or 2.2%, on Wednesday, while the broad-based rose 3.1% and the tech-heavy closed 4.4% higher.
This surge followed Federal Reserve Chair teeing up a smaller half-percentage point interest rate hike in December, when the Fed meets for the last time this year.
The has hiked interest rates by 75 basis points in each of its last four policy-setting meetings in an attempt to curb inflation at record levels, but stock markets posted a strong November on expectations for such a pivot.
The Dow gained 5.7% in November, the S&P 500 rose 5.4% and the Nasdaq Composite ended the month 4.4% higher, posting two consecutive positive months for the first time since the end of last year.
The main focus Thursday will be on the economic data dump, led by the weekly numbers, especially ahead of Friday’s official monthly . These numbers will provide more clarity on the strength of the labor market ahead of the December Fed meeting.
There will also be data on and , as well as and the .
In the corporate sector, earnings are due from the likes of Kroger (NYSE:), Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:) and Dollar General (NYSE:).
Elsewhere, Salesforce (NYSE:) will be in the spotlight after the software company announced that Bret Taylor would step down as co-chief executive officer in January and that co-founder Marc Benioff will become the sole CEO.
Snowflake (NYSE:) stock traded sharply lower premarket after the cloud computing firm issued light revenue guidance, while Five Below (NASDAQ:) stock climbed after the discount retailer raised its full-year guidance on the back of strong third-quarter numbers.
Crude oil prices edged higher Thursday with the focus on the weekend’s OPEC+ meeting in terms of future global crude supply.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies meet virtually on Sunday, and the fact the delegates are not meeting in person is seen as indicating that future production levels will remain unchanged.
However, crude prices have fallen close to their lowest levels this year, and are below the levels which prompted the group to slash output by 2 million barrels a day last month.
Crude prices had rallied sharply this week after data showed U.S. inventories shrank substantially more than expected in the prior week, with data from the pointing to a drop of over 12 million barrels.
By 07:00 ET, futures traded 1.3% higher at $81.62 a barrel, while the contract rose 1.2% to $88.02.
Additionally, rose 1.9% to $1,793.95/oz, while traded 0.3% higher at 1.0440.
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