U.S. Stocks To Open Lower Ahead Of Easter Break
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks are set to open a touch lower Thursday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite break from a 5-session winning streak, with price action likely to be cautious ahead of the three-day Easter holiday.
Micron Technology could benefit from its announcement that pricing trends are stable. However, the company reported a quarterly loss and its rating was cut to sell by Goldman Sachs analyst James Covello.
The futures contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average last was down 2 points at 12,593.
Futures contracts for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 were 0.40 lower at 1,448.10 and down 0.5 point at 1,818.8.
Stocks closed modestly higher Wednesday, with the Dow industrials up about 20 points, the S&P 500 adding 1.6 points and the Nasdaq Composite rising 8.4 points. A raft of economic reports came in worse than forecast, but crude-oil futures declined in the wake of Iran freeing 15 U.K. naval personnel it had captured.
In early action Thursday, crude-oil futures eased 8 cents to $64.30 a barrel.
On Thursday investors will be focused on the upcoming holiday. There will be no stocks trading in the U.S. on Friday, but commodities will trade electronically and the Treasury market will hold an abbreviated 2-hour morning session.
"The futures are not indicating much in the way of any pre-market trading pressure," said Marc Pado, chief U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. "It appears that the market is content to go into the weekend poised below the old highs and let earnings determine the next move, next week."
The first-quarter earnings season will begin in earnest next week, with results from aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. .
There was limited market reaction to news from the Labor Department that weekly jobless claims rose 11,000 to 321,000 in the latest week, marking the highest level since March 3. However, the four-week average of new claims fell by 1,500 to 315,750, the lowest since Feb. 3.
The claims figures arrived ahead of Friday's eagerly awaited nonfarm payroll report for March.
Bad weather in February contributed to the weak total of 97,000 new jobs created that month. For March, economists surveyed by MarketWatch say the return to more-normal weather probably boosted hiring. The median forecast from the survey points to payroll growth of about 158,000 in March.
Stocks on the move
Micron Technology stock was up 2.2% at $12.33 in premarket electronic trade. The producer of semiconductor devices took a $52 million loss in its second quarter, but during a conference call, its executives said that prices for memory chips have stabilized.
In other technology news, Dell Inc. Wednesday said it wouldn't file its annual report on time because it hasn't finished an internal investigation into its past accounting practices. The personal computer maker delayed filing its second-quarter and third-quarter reports last year because of the internal probe and has yet to file those reports.
Shares of Dell were 2 cents higher at $23.26 in premarket electronic trade.
Take Two Interactive Software revealed in a filing Wednesday that a U.S. probe, originally just into stock options practices, has turned formal. That stock was off 8.3% at $19.58 before the opening.
Nokia Corp. agreed to pay Qualcomm Inc. $20 million in the second quarter for using Qualcomm's UMTS license, in what sets a precedent for a larger patent dispute between the two firms. The stock was 12 cents higher at $23.45 before the bell.
Barnes & Noble Inc. said its special committee found "numerous instances" of improper backdating after reviewing more than 3,300 employees who received stock options from 1996 through 2006. The book retailer said the committee didn't find any intent to defraud, as the dating and pricing practice for stock options was applied uniformly and was no used selectively to benefit any one group or individual.
There were few premarket quotes for the bookseller, but it could be active later.
Other markets
The British pound was under pressure after the Bank of England left its key rate unchanged at 5.25%. According to Action Economics, some market players had expected the central bank to lift rates. The pound last was down 0.4% at $1.9685.
The dollar rose 0.2% to 118.98 yen as the euro held steady against the dollar at $1.3376.
Treasurys ticked lower in early doings. The benchmark 10-year note last was down 2/32 at 99-23/32 with a yield of 4.660%.
Gold futures edged lower, but held above $670 an ounce, as traders appeared unwilling to sell the metal ahead of the holiday. Gold for June delivery fell 20 cents at $677.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
By Leslie Wines