US pre-open: Futures point to losses ahead of GDP, jobless claims
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Thursday 30 Jul 2020
(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were pointing to heavy losses ahead of the bell on Thursday ahead of earnings reports from some of the biggest names in tech, a quarterly reading on US gross domestic product and another week's worth of jobless claims.
As of 1250 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.89%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.94% and 1.04% weaker, respectively.
The Dow closed 160.29 points higher on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve vowed to maintain its current stimulus measures.
Overnight, the Fed kept the US interest rate in a range between 0% and 0.25%, stating that while the economy had somewhat recovered of late, activity and employment remained "well below their levels at the beginning of the year".
Chairman Jerome Powell also said the central bank would keep an accommodative stance until the economy had fully "weathered" the effects of the coronavirus storm.
As far as the new day's trading was concerned, market participants will be awaiting an update on US gross domestic product later in the day, with the US economy expected to have contracted a shocking 34.5% in the second quarter.
However, one thing seen as potentially being able to help the Dow recover from a likely painful GDP reading was earnings from Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple after all four of the companies' respective chief executives testified in front of Congress on Wednesday to address antitrust concerns.
Still on corporate news, PayPal posted some solid second-quarter figures overnight, while Qualcomm rallied in extended trading after beating estimates on both earnings and revenue.
On the macro front, GDP figures will be released at 1330 BST, as will this week's round of jobless claims data.
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