U.S. Stocks Expected To Fall As Bank Of America Disappoints

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bank of America Corp.'s larger-than-expected profit drop and a rise in weekly jobless claims steered U.S. stocks toward a weaker open Thursday, with the disappointing results reported by the nation's second-biggest bank serving as another example of ongoing trouble in the financial sector.

Lower ahead of the government's latest count of those filing for unemployment benefits, stock futures held their losses in the wake of the data.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 60 points to 13,907.

Those for the S&P 500 dropped 10.10 points to 1,542.30, while those for the Nasdaq 100 fell 13 points to 2,183.75.

The Labor Department reported an increase of 28,000 in the number of those seeking new jobless claims, bringing the count to 337,000 last week. .

"Though the data may have been impacted somewhat by the Columbus Day holiday, the numbers are nevertheless worse than expected and will play into the hands of bond bulls who see significant economic weakness ahead," said analysts at Action Economics.

Treasury prices rallied, with the 10-year note rising 13/32 to 101 30/32, as the benchmark's yield at 4.502%.

In currencies, the dollar weakened sharply against major rivals, with the euro hitting a fresh all-time high against the greenback, trading as high as $1.4304.

In energy, crude-oil futures headed higher in electronic trading early on but remained well below the previous session's record $89 mark. Crude for November delivery was recently up 23 cents at $87.63 a barrel. .

And in other commodities action, the December gold contract climbed $5.70 to $768 an ounce.

In an echo of recent disappointments from other financial institutions including Citigroup Inc., Bank of America early Thursday reported a third-quarter decline in net profit of 32%.

After the closing bell, Google Inc. is scheduled to release its results, with Wall Street looking for solid profits and sales from the Internet search giant. .

On Wednesday, Wall Street closed mixed after surging oil prices quashed an early rally, although the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite retained gains amid well-received earnings from Intel Corp. , among others.

By Kate Gibson