US pre-open: Stocks set for muted start as focus shifts to payrolls

US futures pointed to a marginally weaker open on Wall Street as investors erred on the side of caution ahead of Friday’s non-farm payrolls report.

At 1115 BST, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were all down 0.2%.

Meanwhile, oil prices were little changed after rallying overnight on the back of US Energy Information Administration data showing crude supplies fell by 3m barrels in the week ended 30 September, down for the fifth straight week.

West Texas Intermediate was down 0.1% at $49.80 a barrel and Brent crude was up 0.1% at $51.91.

Jamieson Blake, retail sales manager at ADS Securities London, said: “We’re looking at another quiet start to trade on Wall Street with at least some investors sitting on the sidelines awaiting more indications over the Fed’s interest rate policy between now and the year-end before making their next move.

“We have a relatively quiet few hours ahead in terms of fundamentals – there’s the weekly jobless claims, but coming sandwiched between the ADP payrolls and tomorrow’s non-farms, the significance here is arguably played down. This may all be looking rather subdued, but with the jobs data tomorrow and earnings season kicking off next week, the absence of volatility is likely to be rather short lived.”

On the corporate front, Twitter shares tumbled in pre-market trade following a report that Alphabet’s Google is not planning to make a bid for the company.

Technology news website Recode also cited sources familiar with the matter on Wednesday as saying that Disney and Apple were also unlikely to make a bid.

Elsewhere, Yum Brands could be in focus after its quarterly results released late on Wednesday missed analysts’ expectations.

On the macroeconomic calendar, US initial jobless claims at 1330 BST are expected to show 256,000 claims.