Worries hang over Wall Street

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks were poised for a weak open Thursday as concerns about the health of the economy hung over investors.

At 6:19 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were narrowly lower, suggesting a flat to slightly lower start for Wall Street.

Stocks tanked on Wednesday, with the Dow losing about 221 points, after oil prices reached the $100 a barrel level before closing just below that mark. A report that showed an unexpected decline in manufacturing for the first time in 11 months also ignited new recession fears.

Oil prices continued to hover near the $100 a barrel mark in early trading Thursday, with the price of U.S., light crude slipping 6 cents to $99.56 a barrel in electronic trading. But trading is likely to be volatile ahead of the release of the government's weekly inventory report, due at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Also on the economic calendar is a report on private sector employment from payroll services firm ADP, one on online job listings from Monster that showed a decline in December, as well as a report on layoffs from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas which showed December layoff announcements well below November and year-earlier levels. All three reports come a day ahead of the government's payrolls report, which is forecast to show a modest gain of 70,000 jobs in December, down from a 97,000 increase in November. The unemployment rate is also forecast to rise to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent.

November factory orders also are on tap Thursday, as is the weekly report on initial jobless claims.

In corporate news, State Street Corp. (STT, Fortune 500) became the latest financial services firm to report a hit from credit market problems as it said it a would take a $279 million charge, equal to 71 cents a share, to establish a reserve to cover legal exposure and other costs associated with the underperformance of certain fixed-income assets managed by its investment management arm. The reserve will be $618 million on a pre-tax basis.

Major automakers are set to report their December sales, with sales tracker Edmunds.com forecasting that the number of vehicles sold in the month slipped 3.6 percent decrease from the year-earlier period, but rebounded 16.8 percent from the weak November sales.

Edmunds sees relatively flat sales for General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) compared to a year earlier, a 6 to 7 percent decline at Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC, and slightly lower sales at major Japanese automakers, such as Toyota Motor (TM). Those sales will be reported throughout the day with Ford's noon report likely the first from the major automakers.

DVD-rental service Netflix (NFLX) and LG Electronics announced plans to have movies downloaded over the Internet to play on household televisions using a new LG-branded device. The device is due out in the second half of 2008.

The New York Times reports that privately held Landmark Communications has put the Weather Channel up for sale and that bids for the cable network and its Web site could top $5 billion, with media giants such as the NBC Universal unit of General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), News Corp. (NWS, Fortune 500) and No. 1 cable operator Comcast (CMCSA) among those interested in the property.

Overseas markets followed Wall Street lower. In Asia, Hong Kong stocks tumbled. Japanese markets were closed. European stocks fell in the early going.