– The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a higher open on Thursday, with sentiment getting a lift from the results of the Italian and Spanish bond auctions, which produced encouraging results. That said, domestic data released earlier in the day was not in line with buoyant indicators received in recent times, although they were not overly negative either. Despite remaining below the 400,000 level, jobless claims rose by more than expected in the recent reporting week, while retail sales growth was softer than expectations.
European debt worries and apprehensions about some first-tier data and events scheduled to be released over Thursday and Friday weighed on the markets, resulting in a mixed close on Wednesday. The Dow Industrials and the S&P 500 Index languished below the unchanged line for much of the session before closing on a mixed note. The Dow fell 13.02 points or 0.10 percent before closing at 12,450 but the S&P 500 Index closed up 0.40 points or 0.03 percent at 1,293.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index recovered in late morning trading but continued to show nervousness until late trading before decisively moving higher. The technology-weighted index closed at 2,711, up 8.26 points or 0.31 percent.
Sixteen of the thirty Dow components closed lower, with Disney (DIS), Coca-Cola (KO) and Chevron (CVX) declining sharply. On the other hand, Bank of America (BAC), Alcoa (AA), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) advanced notably.
Oil, oil service and gold were the worst performing sectors, while, housing, biotechnology, airline, basic material, financial, networking and disk drive stocks saw notable gains.
Commodity, Currency Markets
Crude oil futures are rising $0.66 to $101.53 a barrel after declining $1.37 to $100.87 a barrel on Wednesday. The previous session’s drop came amid macroeconomic concerns and the release of the weekly inventory report, which showed that crude oil stockpiles rose by 5 million barrels to 334.6 million barrels in the week ended January 6th. Inventories were above the upper limit of the average range.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 3.6 million barrels, remaining above the upper limit of the average range. Distillate inventories also increased, rising by 4 million barrels and were in the middle of the average range. Refinery capacity utilization averaged 84.9 percent for the four weeks ended January 6th compared to 84.8 percent in the previous week.
Gold futures, which rose $8.10 to $1,639.60 an ounce in the previous session, are currently gaining $15.70 to $1,655.30 an ounce.
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