US benchmark equity indexes were primarily in positive territory before Thursday's opening bell as investors awaited significant economic reports and earnings results from various companies. The Standard & Poor's 500 index increased by 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite saw a gain of 0.8%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced a slight dip in premarket trading.
In the Asian markets, the majority of exchanges were trending downward, contrasting with midday European bourses, which were showing positive momentum across the continent. Shares of CSX Corporation faced a notable drop of 5.6% in pre-bell trading after the rail-based freight transportation provider's third-quarter results fell short of market expectations.
Conversely, Nvidia Corporation recorded a gain of 2.7%, while shares of Lucid Group, Inc. decreased substantially by approximately 15%. In a positive development, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company saw its US-listed stock rise by 8.1% following the report of quarterly results that exceeded expectations.
Other companies such as Blackstone Inc., Elevance Health Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., Infosys Limited, Truist Financial Corporation, Travelers Companies, Inc., KeyCorp, and Snap-on Incorporated are also expected to deliver their latest financial results prior to the market opening. Later on Thursday, Netflix, Inc.
is set to publish its earnings along with Intuitive Surgical, Inc. and WD-40 Company. On the economic calendar for today, important reports are scheduled for release at 8:30 am ET, including the weekly jobless claims bulletin, the retail sales report for September, and the Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index for October.
Following this, the industrial production report for the previous month is due at 9:15 am, accompanied by August's business inventory report and the housing market index for October at 10 am. Additionally, the weekly EIA domestic natural-gas supplies and petroleum inventories reports are set to be released at 10:30 am and 11 am, respectively.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee is also scheduled to address the public at 11 am. Before the opening bell, Bitcoin saw a slight decline of 1.2% to $66,972. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude oil recorded a marginal increase of 0.1% to $70.48 per barrel, yields on 10-year Treasuries advanced by 1.8 basis points to 4.03%, and the price of gold rose by 0.4% to $2,703 per ounce..