U.S. stock index futures turned lower Thursday ahead of the release of data on August retail sales, regional manufacturing and weekly unemployment claims, after a tentative deal to avoid a nationwide railway strike was reached.
What’s happening
-
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
YM00,
+0.03%
fell 42 points, or 0.1%, to 31209. -
Futures on the S&P 500
ES00,
-0.08%
dropped 8.25 points, or 0.2%, to 3957. -
Futures on the Nasdaq 100
NQ00,
-0.23%
decreased 46.5 points, or 0.4%, to 12176.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
rose 30 points, or 0.1%, to 31135, the S&P 500
SPX,
increased 13 points, or 0.34%, to 3946, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
gained 86 points, or 0.74%, to 11720.
What’s driving markets
The White House in the early hours of Thursday announced that a deal to avert a railway strike set for midnight was reached. The stocks of railroad operators including Union Pacific
UNP,
rose in premarket trade.
Wall Street had fretted such a strike could exacerbate inflation at a time when consumer prices already were rising at a clip of 8.3% year-over-year in August.
There’s still a host of economic reports to come on Thursday, most notably the retail sales report for August. A busy slate also includes weekly jobless claims, import prices and industrial production for August, and September readings of both the Empire State and Philadelphia Fed manufacturing indexes.