US pre-open: Futures higher as investors shrug off hotter-than-expected PPI

Wall Street futures were in the green ahead of the bell on Thursday as investors seemingly shrugged off a hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation reading.

As of 1245 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.34%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.29% and 0.41% firmer, respectively.

The Dow closed 37.83 points higher on Wednesday in what was a mixed session for major indices.

Thursday's primary focus was Ferbuary's producer price index, a measure of wholesale inflation, which advanced 0.6% last month - double what economists' had been expecting to see. The PPI report marks the last major piece of macro data to be released ahead of the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy meeting on 19 and 20 March.

Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "The market has repeatedly overestimated the Fed’s appetite for looser monetary policy, and it could be that they still are. Investors should be preparing themselves for any indication that the Fed is pulling back on rate cut expectations. This is quite possible given the strength of the economy, the historically low rate of unemployment and the pent up demand that could be unleashed once the Fed starts cutting rates."

Elsewhere, retail sales in the grew less than expected last month, according to the Department of Commerce, which said retail sales volumes grew at a 0.6% month-on-month pace in January to reach $700.7bn in seasonally adjusted terms. Economists had pencilled-in an increase of 0.8%. Excluding automobiles, retail sales were up by 0.3% on the month (consensus: 0.5%). January's decline in retail sales was revised down from an initial estimate of -0.8% to -1.1%.

On another note, first-time unemployment claims dipped unexpectedly in the week ended 9 March, according to the Department of Labor, slipping by 1,000 to reach 209,000. Economists had anticipated a rise to 218,000. The four-week moving average on the other hand, which aims to smooth out the variations in the data from one week to the next, declined by 500 to 208,000, while secondary claims, which are those not being filed for the first time and referencing the week ended 2 March, were up by 17,000 to 1.81m.

In the corporate space, Robinhood traded higher on the back of a 16% month-on-month jump in assets under custody, while Fisker was firmly in the red following a Wall Street Journal report that the company had hired restructuring advisors in preparation for a potential bankruptcy filing.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com