Wall Street set for slight rise ahead of jobless data

The main indices on Wall Street are expected to edge higher at the opening bell on Thursday after a mixed performance in yesterday’s session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is sitting at a new peak, is expected to add just 21 points or 0.09% to 34,251 while the S&P 500 is set to rise 0.16% and the Nasdaq Composite - which fell on Wednesday - is forecast to recover 0.16%. Sophie Griffiths at Oanda said: "US indices are pointing to a subdued start after the Dow hit a fresh all-time high... News that President Biden supports the suspension of patents on Covid vaccines was bad news for drug makers but is good news for the global economic recovery. The quicker the world receives the vaccine, the faster global economic recovery will be, and the less likely we will see a vaccine-resistant mutation." On the US data front, there are the weekly jobless claims, which are expected to show a drop from 553,000 to 538,000. These come ahead of Friday's widely watched non-farm payroll numbers, which could see a million jobs added in April. On the non-farm numbers, Michael Hewson at CMC Markets said: "Average estimates are for a number in the region of 1m especially since weekly jobless claims are also trending lower dropping sharply below 600,000 a week, while the unemployment rate is expected to fall further, from 6% to 5.8%." Four things to watch for on Thursday: Firms reporting earnings today include industrial gas giant Linde PLC (NYSE:LIN), digital payments firm Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) and real estate investment group Store Capital Corp (NYSE:STOR) Shares in ecommerce giant Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) could be in focus after founder Jeff Bezos recently offloaded US$2.5bn in shares Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER) may also draw attention after reporting that reclassifying its UK drivers as staff rather than contractors has cost it US$600mln. On the macro front, aside from the jobless figures, some investors will be keeping an eye on any more details from the latest meeting of the Bank of England