US stocks are set to open higher on Thursday, recovering from the previous session's sell-off following confirmation of the country's first case of the omicron variant.
At 7:15 a.m. ET (1115 GMT), Dow futures were up 262 points, or 0.8%, S&P 500 futures were up 17 points, or 0.4%, and { {8874|Nasdaq 100 equivalent future}} goes sideways.
The major indexes closed sharply lower on Wednesday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first case of the Covid-19 variant Omicron. This person, who is from California but has recently been in South Africa, is fully vaccinated and is believed to be in isolation and recovering.
The Dow Jones fell more than 460 points, or 1.3%, the S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.8%. Following Tuesday's drop, this represents the worst two-day loss in 14 months.
Wednesday's sell-off, and gains expected late Thursday, continue a string of high volatility for Wall Street indexes as the market tries to consider potential effects from fresh variation.
Earlier on Thursday, the Biden administration announced tightening travel rules, requiring all international passengers to be tested for Covid within 24 hours of departure and expanding the requirement to wear face masks. page on all domestic flights and public transport through March 18.
Another focus that has captured investors' attention is the speed at which the Federal Reserve will normalize monetary policy. In his second day of testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Chairman Jerome Powell repeated that speeding up bond purchases will be on the central bank's agenda at its December meeting.
This means Friday's official jobs report will be carefully studied and preceded by weekly initial jobless claims data due at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Moving on to the corporate sector, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be in the spotlight after a Bloomberg report found that demand for its latest batch of iPhones is waning due to pricing and inventory issues.
Crowdstrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), Five Below (NASDAQ: FIVE) and Splunk (NASDAQ: {{31066|SPLK} }) all reported impressive earnings after the bell ended. on Wednesday, while the likes of Dollar General (NYSE: DG) and Kroger (NYSE: KR) will report earnings soon.
Crude oil prices traded higher on Thursday, recovering from three-month lows reached in the previous session, as traders were adjusting their positions ahead of the OPEC+ meeting to decide on output levels. Future.
Expectations are growing that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, will halt plans late Thursday to add an additional 400,000 barrels a day by May. January.
Limiting the upside was news from the Energy Information Administration of a less than expected drop in US crude inventories last week.
By 7 a.m. ET, US crude oil futures were trading 1.3% higher at $66.39 a barrel, while Brent futures were up 1.1% to $69.63. .
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.4 percent to $1,778.10 an ounce, while EUR/USD traded 0.2 percent higher at 1.1342.