US pre-open: Stocks lower ahead PPI data, jobless claims

Wall Street futures had stocks opening lower ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants looked ahead to a number of data points.

As of 1250 GMT, Dow Jones futures were down 0.14%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.24% and 0.29% weaker, respectively.

The Dow closed 38.78 points higher on Wednesday following a stronger-than-expected January retail sales report.

Market participants will focus on a number of key macro points on Thursday, with January's building permits figures and producer price index set to be published at 1330 GMT, as will the Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report and February's Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index.

Federal Reserve bankers Loretta Mester, James Bullard and Lisa Cook will all delivers speeches throughout the course of the day.

In the corporate space, Hyatt Hotels reported a fourth-quarter net income of $294.0m after reporting a loss at the same time a year earlier, Crocs posted earnings that came in $0.40 ahead of estimates, Hasbro missed quarterly earnings per share estimates by just $0.01, and WeWork fell $0.16 short of EPS estimates despite seeing revenue top expectations.

Still to come, Dropbox, DoorDash and Hasbro will all report earnings on Thursday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com