US pre-open: Futures point to third-straight day of losses

Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the bell on Thursday after the blue-chip index turned in its worst performance since January in the previous session.

As of 1210 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.45%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.30% and 0.28% lower, respectively.

The Dow closed 681.5 points lower on Wednesday as major indices fell on some higher-than-expected inflation numbers.

SpreadEx's Connor Campbell said: "The Dow Jones was really dealt a hammering yesterday evening, closing 1.99%, or 681 points, lower to post its worst performance since January. This following an unexpected-yet-unsurprising surge in inflation in April, to 4.2% at the annualised rate – more than double the Fed's target.

"And with the index set to drop a further 80 points this afternoon, the Dow is soon to find itself back at 33,500, mere days after crossing 35,000 for the first time."

Thursday's main focus will be this week's jobless report from the Department of Labor, slated for release at 1330 BST, with expectations for a relatively flat week-on-week print at around 500,000.

Inflation will be in focus for a second straight session as last month's producer price index will also be published at 1330 BST,

Elsewhere on the macro front, the Federal Reserve Bank's Christopher Waller and James Bullard will both deliver speeches throughout the course of the day.

In the corporate space, tech stocks were under pressure again prior to the open, with Tesla, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet all trading lower in the pre-market.