Futures slip ahead of weekly unemployment claims data

[September 10, 2020]   By Medha Singh

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures eased on Thursday, following the S&P 500's biggest one-day jump in three months, as investors cautiously awaited the weekly jobless claims data to gauge the economy's health.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is expected to dip for a third straight week but remain far above pre-pandemic levels, as layoffs and furloughs persisted across industries.

With economic data signaling a gradual pace of recovery, the U.S. Senate was set to vote later in the day on a significantly scaled back Republican coronavirus relief bill in what could be the final vote on fiscal aid in Congress before the Nov. 3 presidential and congressional elections.

Wall Street's main indexes rebounded on Wednesday, snapping the biggest three-day rout since March, as investors returned to tech-focused stocks which are deemed insulated from the current economic downturn.

The CBOE volatility index, a gauge of investors' fear, hit a near three-month high at the start of a historically tumultuous month of September after a stellar five-month rally in U.S. stocks, led by tech shares and backed by tremendous fiscal and monetary support.

At 6:48 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 145 points, or 0.52%. S&P 500 e-minis were down 17.5 points, or 0.51% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 46 points, or 0.4%.

Walt Disney Co fell 0.6% premarket as sources said Chinese authorities barred major media outlets from covering the release of "Mulan", in an order issued after controversy erupted overseas over the film's links with the Xinjiang region.

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Devik Jain in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)

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