Futures little changed as Fed stays on course

[January 28, 2016]  By Abhiram Nandakumar

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were largely unchanged on Thursday, a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve gave little indication of slowing the pace of interest rate hikes despite the turbulence in global markets.

The Fed kept rates unchanged and said it was "closely monitoring" global economic and financial developments.

Benchmark Brent crude was up nearly 1 percent, after Russian officials decided to talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about cutting production to help prices. [O/R]

U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 falling more than 1 percent, after the Fed's statement failed to impress some investors.

Investors and the central bank will now look to economic data for clarity on the health of the U.S. economy.

Separate reports on Thursday are expected to show durable goods orders fell 0.6 percent in December, while jobless claims likely fell to 282,000 last week. Both reports are due at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Dow component Visa is slated to report before the bell, and tech heavyweights Microsoft and Amazon are among those expected to report results after the close.

Ford's shares were up 2.5 percent at $12.15 after the company's results.

Facebook surged 11.7 percent to $105.50 after the world's biggest online social network reported a 52 percent jump in revenue.

EBay sank 11.9 percent to $23.28 premarket after the company forecast weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit, while PayPal, which was spun-off from eBay, was up 5.3 percent at $33.25 after its revenue beat estimates.

Juniper Networks  was down 8.3 percent at $23.18 and Qualcomm  was off 3.7 percent at $45.75 after both issued grim forecasts, prompting a slew of rating downgrades.

Futures snapshot at 7:16 a.m. ET:

Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were down 12 points, or 0.08 percent, with 58,833 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis were up 2.5 points, or 0.13 percent, with 296,833 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 23.5 points, or 0.57 percent, on volume of 60,578 contracts.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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