By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening marginally higher Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperforming after a disappointing update from influential chipmaker Nvidia.
At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 120 points, or 0.4%, S&P 500 Futures traded 14 points, or 0.3%, higher and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed just 5 points, or 0.1%.
The main equity indices on Wall Street closed higher Wednesday and are currently up for the week, on track to snap long losing streaks. This followed the release of the minutes from the last Federal Reserve policy-setting meeting, which saw the central bank lifting interest rates by a hefty 50 basis points.
While the minutes pointed to similar rate hikes in June and July, they also pointed to the desire to have some breathing room on tightening later in the year in case the economy starts to sharply slow down.
A number of major retailers, including Target (NYSE:TGT) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT), have already reported disappointing quarterly earnings as customers cut back on discretionary spending in the face of rising prices for essentials like food and fuel.
There are more retailers, such as Macy’s (NYSE:M), Costco (NASDAQ:COST), Dollar Tree (NASDAQ:DLTR), and Dollar General (NYSE:DG), due to report results on Thursday.
However, the focus is likely to be on the tech sector after chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock fell 6% premarket after it warned of losing $500 million in sales in China and Russia in the current quarter as demand for video game chips slowed.
Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) stock also slumped over 14% premarket after the data analytics software maker reported disappointing current quarter guidance, citing a more challenging operating environment.
Elsewhere, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock rose over 5% premarket following a filing that revealed billionaire Elon Musk pledged an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing to fund his $44-billion offer for the social network company, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock fell 1.4% after Bloomberg reported the company expects not to increase production of its iPhones this year.
The economic data slate is headed up by the second reading of the first-quarter gross domestic product as well as the weekly jobless claims, while pending home sales for April will also be studied after new home sales slumped earlier in the week.
Oil prices edged higher Thursday, helped by a bigger-than-expected drawdown in U.S. crude inventories last week of one million barrels, an illustration of a tight global market.
The market remains focused on whether the European Union can agree to an embargo on Russian oil in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine, despite the opposition of a number of Eastern European countries, and Hungary in particular.
By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.9% higher at $111.28 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.6% to $111.73.
Additionally, gold futures traded 0.2% lower at $1,842.80/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% higher at 1.0715.