By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen trading in a mixed fashion Thursday, following the previous session’s sharp selloff as the earnings season continues.
At 7:15 AM ET (1215 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 58 points, or 0.2%, S&P 500 Futures traded 2 points, or 0.1%, higher, while Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 57 points, or 0.4%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2.1%, or 634 points, lower Wednesday, while the S&P 500 ended down 2.6% and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 2.5% - all recording their steepest one-day drops since October.
These indices are all over 2% lower so far this week, and are on course for their worst week since the end of October.
Prompting this selloff was the need for hedge funds to liquidate positions to generate funds after their short positions in stocks like GameStop (NYSE:GME), Blackberry (TSX:BB) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) ran headfirst into a wave of buying from retail traders.
This resulted in the likes of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), for a long time some of the darlings of the investment community, trading sharply in the red after the close despite reporting generally positive earnings.
Volatility is likely to continue Thursday, even though the online discussion group that has been central in promoting the heavily-shorted stocks was restricted on Reddit for a time.
The earnings season continues apace, with the battered travel sector in focus: American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) are all due to report. McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) is also expected to release results Thursday, which are expected to show uplift from pandemic-driven demand for take-out fast food.
The Federal Reserve kept its monetary policy unchanged Wednesday at its first meeting under the Biden administration, but Chairman Jerome Powell was at pains to point out that “we’re a long way from a full recovery.”
This puts the initial release of the fourth quarter U.S. GDP figure as well as the weekly jobless claims number into focus, both due at 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT).
Oil prices edged lower Thursday, amid worries over weakening demand due to travel restrictions, particularly in China.
China, the largest importer of crude in the world, is facing a rise in coronavirus cases as it heads into the Lunar New Year holiday, usually its busiest period of the year for travel.
The Chinese Ministry of Transport has forecast the number of trips that will be taken will be up 15% from last year, when the virus was raging, but down 40% from 2019.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.2% lower at $52.75 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 0.2% to $55.41.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.3% to $1,842.75/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.2111.