US pre-open: Futures in the red ahead of jobless claims, earnings

Wall Street futures were pointing to losses ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants continued to thumb over earnings from some of the nation's biggest companies.

As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones and S&P 500 futures had the indices opening 0.21% and 0.18% lower, respectively, while Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.03%.

The Dow closed 47.79 points higher on Wednesday, extending gains recorded in the previous session.

Earnings season continued to hold investor attention prior to the open after electric carmaker Tesla posted stronger-than-expected earnings but narrowing automotive gross margins overnight and carrier United Airlines revealed it had returned to profitability in Q2 despite results falling short of analysts' expectations.

As for Thursday's earnings slate, American Airlines, AT&T, Domino's, and Phillip Morris will report earnings before the open, while Mattel, Snap, Capital One and Seagate will update on their most recent trading quarters after the close.

On the data front, weekly jobless claims data and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's July manufacturing index will be published at 1330 BST, while the Conference Board's June leading index will follow at 1500 BST.

Across the pond, investors were also looking ahead to the latest policy announcement from the European Central Bank, with the ECB expected to hike rates for the first time in 11 years, ending its experiment with negative interest rates.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com