Wall Street poised for early pop
Modest gains seen at the open for Wall Street as investors digest slightly worse-than-exepcted report on jobless claims, and other data.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks were poised for a mild rally at the start Thursday, backing away from pre-market gains only slightly in reaction to a worse-than-expected report on the labor market.
Dow Jones industrial average futures were lower, while Nasdaq-100 and S&P-500 futures were up slightly.
Futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co., said trading could be heavily influenced by the weekly unemployment claims report, considering last month's surprisingly low payroll losses.
"It's increasingly important," said Hogan, referring to the initial jobless claims report. "It's gotten a lot more eyeballs than it used to."
Hogan said even moderate factors in the markets, such as mild moves in currencies and commodities, could cause big swings in the markets because of low volume ahead of the holidays.
"The entire month of December [so far] has seen anemic volume in this market," he said. "I think there's a plethora of institutional investors who closed their books [at the end of the November.]"
Stocks rose Wednesday as the falling dollar boosted commodity stocks, and a rise in wholesale inventories and an upgrade of 3M provided some optimism.
Economy. Investors are focusing on reports on initial claims for unemployment benefits and the U.S. trade balance before the opening bell - though they showed little reaction to the worse-than-expected job report.
The number of Americans filing first-time claims for state jobless benefits rose to 474,000 in the week ended Dec. 5. That's up 17,000 from the prior week.
Jobless claims were expected to have declined by 2,000 last week to 455,000, according to analysts surveyed by Briefing.com.
The Commerce Department is expected to report that the nation's trade gap widened in October to $36.8 billion from $36.5 billion in September.
At 10 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish projections on job growth by industry.
The flow of funds report from the Federal Reserve is due around noon ET. The report is likely to show that household net worth continued to fall in the second quarter, along with home values.
The Treasury budget is due in the afternoon. Analysts believe the government ran a deficit of $131.6 billion in November after a $176.4 billion shortfall in October.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies before the Congressional Oversight Panel about the federal government's bailout of the financial system The panel, in a report issued Wednesday, found that the bailout stopped the financial panic and stabilized the banking system after the once-in-a-lifetime measure was hurriedly enacted in October 2008. but failed to stem problems like lackluster lending and growing foreclosures that still plague the economy.
Companies. Costco (COST, Fortune 500), the No. 1 warehouse club operator, posted fiscal first-quarter earnings of 60 cents a share, down from 65 cents a year ago but in line with analysts' expectations.
Discount retailer Dollar General (DG) is expected to post third-quarter earnings of 25 cents per share, up from 8 cents a year ago.
Shares of AOL will begin trading Thursday after the Internet firm officially separated from media giant Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) Wednesday.
World markets. Stocks in Asia ended lower, with Tokyo's Nikkei index retreating 1.4% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index down 0.2%. European indexes rose in midday trading.
Other markets. The dollar was mixed against major international currencies: flat against the euro, down against the pound and up against the yen.
Crude oil for January delivery rose 57 cents to $71.24 a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery were up $7.80 to $1,128.20 an ounce. That's more than 7% below last week's record settlement high of $1,218.30. 
