US pre-open: Futures tick up, but investors cautious ahead of key data

US stock futures were pointing to small gains on Wall Street on Thursday, with markets set to extend their daily winning streak to five – though gains were only modest on a pivotal week for economic data.

Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up 0.1% in pre-market trade, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched 0.3% higher.

The S&P 500 finished Wednesday's session at 4,514.87 – its highest close since 7 August. Nevertheless, the index is still down for August as a whole and is on track to finish in the red for the month – its first monthly loss since February.

"With August coming to an end, cyclical traders will be well aware of the historical weakness shown over the month of September, which is historically the worst month for the S&P 500," said Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets.

All eyes on economic data

Investors will be on the lookout for US consumer spending stats out on Thursday at 0830 ET, as the Federal Reserve continues to take a data-dependent approach to monetary policy decisions.

Consensus forecasts are for a 0.2% monthly increase in core personal consumption expenditures in July, though any upside surprise is likely to fuel fears of another rate hike since the PCE data is among the Fed's key tools to gauge the inflation outlook.

Jobless claims data, also due out at 0830, is expected to show that claims for unemployment benefits totalled 235,000 last week, up from 230,000 the week before.

"Recent weakness in US economic data has helped lift equities to the detriment of the dollar, " Scope Markets' Mahony said. "This puts extra focus onto the jobless claims data release today, with any further signs of economic distress likely to benefit stocks on expectation that the Federal Reserve would take their foot off the gas on the prospect that their action is finally making an impact on the economy."

As such, a speech from the Boston Fed's president, Susan Collins, will likely be closely watched at 0900.

This week is an important week for labour-market indicators. On Wednesday, the ADP Research Institute revealed that a lower-than-expected 177,000 jobs were created in the US private sector in August, down from 324,000 in July.

Eyes will now start turning to the official non-farm payrolls data on Friday, which is similarly predicted to show a softening in job creation to 170,000 in August, from 187,000 the previous month.

Tech stocks make moves after hours

A host of tech stocks were in focus late Wednesday after reporting their earnings after the closing bell.

Digital identity management firm Okta, CRM software group Salesforce and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike all gained after beating second-quarter forecasts and giving bullish outlooks for coming quarters.

Meanwhile, retailers Victoria's Secret, Chewy and Five Below were all out of favour after reporting their quarterly results.