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US pre-open: Futures point to slightly higher start as trade news streams in

By Iain Gilbert

Date: Thursday 21 Nov 2019

US pre-open: Futures point to slightly higher start as trade news streams in

(Sharecast News) - US stock futures were pointing to slight gains for Wall Street's main market gauges ahead of the open on Thursday as trade headlines continued to stream in.
As of 1225 GMT, Dow futures were pointing up by 14 points to 27,814.0, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite futures had the indices opening 2.0 and 5.25 points higher, respectively.

The Dow Industrials had closed 112.93 points lower on Wednesday as uncertainty regarding the possibility of a trade deal between Washington and Beijing mounted.

Federal Reserve officials agreed to not cut interest rates again unless economic conditions change significantly, according to minutes released overnight from their most recent meeting.

The minutes revealed that "most" Federal Open Market Committee members saw the moves as being sufficient enough to "support the outlook of moderate growth, a strong labour market, and inflation near the Committee's symmetric 2% objective".

With the FOMC minutes released, the market will likely continue to look toward trade headlines for direction on Thursday, with the ongoing uncertainty as to whether or not a phase one deal can be reached seemingly suggesting that volatility will remain elevated.

XTB Market analyst David Cheatham said: "It's clear there's been a clear positive shift over the past 12 months in US-China trade, but a lot of this change in opinion has been caused by rhetoric rather than action and earlier this week we saw investors getting just a little jittery on reports that progress may not actually be made."

A report from the Wall Street Journal indicated that China apparently had invited American negotiators to Beijing for a fresh round of trade talks during a phone call thought to have been made late last week. It was not clear if Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had accepted Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's invitation.

The report came shortly after US legislation on Hong Kong had threatened to derail trade discussions.

On the data front, according to the Department of Labor, initial jobless claims for the week ending on 16 November were unchanged from the week before at 227,000 (consensus: 219,000).

Offsetting that miss, the Philadelphia Fed's regional business outlook index for November printed at 10.4 (consensus: 7.0), versus a reading of 5.6 for the previous month.

Existing home sales data for October were set to follow at 1500 GMT.

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will speak at a conference on financial stability at 1330 GMT and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will speak in Bloomington, Minnesota at 1510 GMT.

In the corporate space, Macy's and Gap will both report earnings throughout the course of the day.

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