Weak Claims Report, Inflation Spike May Turn Wall Street Red

New York, NY (AHN) - Wall Street may be headed for a lower start Thursday with mixed news, led by a jobless claims drop and retail stores posting quarterly profits, as oil and the CPI index continue to rise.

U.S. initial weekly jobless insurance claims declined for the first time in the week ending Aug. 9, 10,000 to 450,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Labor Department on Thursday.

The four-week average, which is a less volatile measure, of initial jobless claims increased 19,500 to 440,500 in the second week of August, which is the highest since April 2002.

The number of continuing jobless claims surged 114,000 to 3.42 million for the week ending Aug. 2, which is the most since November 2003, compared to 3.3 million the prior week.

U.S. consumer prices increased more-than-expected 0.8 percent in July with the core CPI at 0.3 percent, led by the rise costs for energy, food, clothing and cigarettes, according to the Labor Department.

Consumer prices increased 5.6 percent in the past year, the largest year-over-year increase since January 1991, with the core CPI at 2.5 percent.

At 9:15 a.m. EDT in New York, Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures were trading down 3.76 points or 0.29 percent at 1,285.83 points, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were decreasing 109.51 points or 0.94 percent at 11,532.96 points.

At the same time, NASDAQ- 100 Index futures was dropping 1.99 points or 0.08 percent at 2,428.62 points.

In commodities, a light sweet crude-futures barrel for September delivery inched over $117-a-barrel mark in electronic trading on Friday.

The contract was trading up 1.2 percent to $117.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after report from the U.S. Energy Department on Wednesday showed a larger-than-expected drop in gasoline inventories.

Last Friday, crude for September delivery declined 4 percent to $115.20 a barrel in New York, which is the lowest level since May 2 as the euro dropped against U.S. dollar.

WalMart Inc., the world's largest retailer, reported that its quarterly profit from continuing operations surged 9 percent to $3.39 billion, or 86 cents a share.The Bentonville, Ark.-based company posted second-quarter sales higher 10 percent to $101.6 billion and raised its earnings forecast for all of 2008 to a range of $3.43 to $3.50 a share.

In the currency market, the euro was trading down 0.1 percent at $1.4904, which hit its lowest since Feb. 26, compared to $1.5005 closing on Friday last week.