Wall Street flat ahead of economic reports

US stock index futures pointed to a flat open in Thursday's pre-session hours as market participants looked ahead of fresh economic reports later in the day.
Wall Street top three indexes closed mixed on Wednesday as investors digested upbeat employment data, which raised expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike this month.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.33 percent / 20,855.73 points
• Standard & Poor’s 500: -0.23 percent / 2,362.98 points
• Nasdaq Composite: +0.06 percent / 5,837.55 points

Automatic Data Processing reported a 298,000 jobs build in February, much above the estimated 190,000 increase and even larger than the 261,000 jobs added in January. If official data on Friday confirms this figures, chances for a Fed hike will probably move to 100 percent.
These jobs numbers are the first to be published under the new Trump administration, which has promised to put American workers first and bring back jobs to the country.
Also, fourth-quarter nonfarm productivity came in at 1.3%, a bit down from a forecasted 1.5 percent. Unit labor costs were a tick above expectations at 1.7 percent.
Oil prices came under strong pressure after the US Energy Information Administration said crude inventories grew by 8.209 million barrels in the week ended March 3, while analysts seen a modest build of 1.967 mn barrels. Data marked a ninth consecutive week of output increases, which translates into bigger worries that US shale producers will derail OPEC-led cuts. WTI futures dropped more than 5 percent during the session and stabilized near the $50 mark.
According to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, traders are currently pricing in at nearly 91 percent a rate increase at the March 15 monetary meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
Later today, export and import price indexes for February are due at 13:30 GMT, with economists hoping for a 0.2 and 0.1 percent growth respectively. Initial jobless claims are scheduled at the same time. Market players are seeing a build to 235,000 applications.

Fort Financial Services