By Peter Nurse
Investing.com — U.S. stocks are seen opening largely flat, stabilizing after the previous session’s strong gains, as investors search for clues of the Federal Reserve’s next move.
At 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT), the contract was up 30 points or 0.1%, traded 3 points or 0.1% higher, and climbed 5 points or 0.1%.
The major Wall Street averages posted solid gains on Wednesday, with the blue-chip closing over 400 points or 1.4% higher, the broad-based up 1.8%, and the tech-heavy 2.1% higher.
Although this was the best day since Aug. 10 for all three averages, snapping seven sessions of consecutive decline, sentiment overall remains weak as investors worry that the Federal Reserve will continue to aggressively raise in order to combat at historic highs.
Influential investment bank, Goldman Sachs, lifted its forecast for the pace of U.S. interest rate hikes. It now expects the Fed to hike by 75 basis points this month and 50 basis points in November, up from their previous forecasts of 50 basis points and 25 basis points respectively. This is followed by a 25 basis points move in December.
With this in mind, investors will focus on a speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Cato Institute’s virtual meeting, due at 09:10 ET (13:10 GMT), as well as the weekly data, at 08:30 ET (12:30 GMT).
In Europe, the European Central Bank is widely expected to lift its key again, after a hike of 50 basis points in July, in an attempt to curb soaring .
In the corporate sector, GameStop (NYSE:) stock surged over 9% premarket after the troubled video game retailer a narrow-than-expected second quarter loss while also announcing a partnership with crypto firm FTX.
Tesla (NASDAQ:) is likely to also be in the spotlight after the electric-car maker reported a near tripling of sales of Chinese-made vehicles in August from a month ago, after ramping up output at its Shanghai plant.
Oil prices edged higher Thursday, ahead of the release of key official U.S. crude inventory data.
Crude has been hit hard of late, with both benchmarks falling to their lowest levels since January, on demand concerns as China pushes on with its COVID Zero policy and central banks tighten monetary policy to fight inflation.
Data from the , released Wednesday, showed that U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose last week, raising additional concerns over slowing global oil demand.
Official is due later in the session, a day later than usual due to Monday’s Labor Day holiday, and traders will be looking for confirmation of the API’s number.
Crude prices had posted early gains after a forecast of slightly higher demand and tighter supply going into 2023 by the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
By 07:00 ET, traded 0.4% higher at $82.28 a barrel, while the contract rose 0.4% to $88.35.
Additionally, rose 0.5% to $1,735.75/oz, while traded 0.1% higher at 1.0012.