(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were trading flat on Thursday after a rally that made the previous session the best in a week, with investors looking forward to weekly jobless claims data for clues about the state of the labor market.
After a dull start to August, Wall Street’s main indexes roared back to life on Wednesday on a boost from a slew of strong results from companies including PayPal Inc and CVS Health.
The second-quarter earnings season has helped markets bounce back from concerns around the fallout of the Ukraine war, soaring inflation, flare-up in China COVID-19 cases and an aggressive rise in borrowing costs.
The benchmark S&P 500 has gained nearly 14.2% from its mid-June lows, but is still in a bear market and down 12.8% for the year.
After an unexpected rebound in July services activity that allayed recessions fears, market participants will keep a close eye on data related to labor market due on Thursday and Friday.
Data on weekly jobless claims, due later in the day, is likely to suggest some softening in the labor market, even as overall conditions remain tight.
The July non-farm payroll report on Friday too is crucial as the U.S. Federal Reserve attempts to cool labor demand to tame inflation.
At 7:24 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 36 points, or 0.11%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 6 points, or 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 28.25 points, or 0.21%.
Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd jumped 5.1% in premarket trading after the Chinese tech-giant beat market expectations, even though growth was flat for the first time due to the impact of the Shanghai lockdown.
ConocoPhillips gained 3.2% as the U.S. oil producer raised its planned capital returns to $15 billion for 2022 after posting a second-quarter profit that more than doubled on surging energy prices.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co fell 3.4% as its cut annual profit view for the second time after quarterly earnings slumped by a third due to lower prices of insulin and competition for its cancer drug, Alimta.
(Reporting by Aniruddha Ghosh and Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
