US pre-open: Stocks seen touch lower as investors continue to eye oil

US futures pointed to a slightly weaker open on Wall Street, where a lack of corporate and macroeconomic news is expected to keep trade fairly muted.

At 1115 BST, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were all 0.3% lower.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: “On a quiet Friday, focus will remain on the oil market and the Fed as traders try to dissect the wide ranging views of policy makers in order to anticipate when the next rate hike will actually happen.

“We had more comments from policy makers on Thursday but once again, there was no consistent messages and John Williams – who earlier in the week sent the dollar into a tailspin after suggesting that the inflation target should be higher, which suggested there was little desire to raise rates – claimed there should be a hike sooner rather than later.

“Meanwhile we also heard from a couple of his colleagues – William Dudley and Robert Kaplan – and again the message wasn’t necessarily consistent with Dudley reiterating that the US economy is strong, as displayed by the labour market data, while Kaplan claimed that while there is some room for manoeuvre on interest rates, it’s limited. With other messages from policy makers being more inconsistent again, it’s no surprise that the markets are changing their mind on the timing of the next hike on almost a daily basis.”

Minutes from the Fed’s 26-27 July meeting released on Wednesday showed policymakers were split over whether a rate hike was needed anytime soon, with some preferring to wait amid benign inflation and others keen to make a move due to the improving labour market.

In corporate news, Applied Materials racked up healthy gains in pre-market trade after the supplier of tools used to make semiconductors said orders rose 10.4% in the third quarter.

Gap was on the back foot after the retailer’s full-year profit forecast missed analysts’ expectations.

In commodity markets, oil prices were little changed, taking a breather following solid gains this week that saw prices hit bull market territory on Thursday amid hopes an output freeze will be agreed at the OPEC meeting next month.

IG analyst Joshua Mahony said: “Essentially the announcement of a meeting in September has seen Brent turn from a bear market to a bull market in 16 days. The Saudis have been talking up the prospects of a deal, and now need to deliver on that or we could see a rapid retreat in the oil price.”

West Texas Intermediate was flat at $48.23 a barrel while Brent crude was down 0.2% at $50.81.