(RTTNews) - US stocks were looking for direction Thursday morning in New York, as traders braced for a busy day of earnings and economic news ahead of Friday’s pivotal monthly jobs report.

As of 6 am ET, the S&P Futures were down 3 points, the NASDAQ Futures were down 15 points, and the Dow Futures were up 2 points.

With Kraft (KFT) and Disney (DIS) leading the way lower after reporting disappointing quarterly results, the Dow suffered substantial weakness Wednesday.

The Dow closed down 121.70 points or 1.5 percent at 7,956.66, the Nasdaq closed down 1.25 points or 0.1 percent at 1,515.05 and the S&P 500 closed down 6.28 points or 0.8 percent at 832.23.

The Dow is down more than 9 percent year-to-date.

While trading on Thursday may be impacted by the release of reports on weekly jobless claims, labor productivity, and factory orders, a number of traders are likely to be looking ahead to the release of the Labor Department’s monthly employment report on Friday. Economists anticipate a loss of 553,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 7.4%.

The European Central Bank is expected to hold steady on interest rates this morning, but a rut cut is anticipated from the Bank of England.

Duke Energy (DUK), MasterCard (MA), and Western Union (WU) are due to release quarterly results before the start of trading on Thursday.

Credit card transaction processing major Visa Inc. (V), Wednesday said its first-quarter profit increased from last year despite the tough economic conditions. The results reflected the growth in payments volume.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) said Wednesday after the markets closed that its second quarter earnings fell 27% from last year, as sales declined amid what it called a challenging macro-economic environment.

The company said in a conference call that it expects third quarter sales to fall between 15% and 20%.

German financial services firm Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Thursday reported a hefty loss for the fourth quarter, hurt by significant losses in its key businesses.

The bank’s fourth-quarter net loss was 4.81 billion euros, compared with net income of 969 million euros last year.

Wednesday after the bell, Pulte Homes Inc. (PHM) reported a narrower fourth quarter loss despite lower revenue, as the fourth largest U.S. homebuilder recorded lower inventory impairments and land-related charges compared to a year ago.

The Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based company reported a net loss for the fourth quarter of $338.2 million or $1.33 per share, compared to a net loss of $874.7 million or $3.46 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Swiss Re stated that it is raising 3 billion Swiss Francs of capital from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKa).

Energy utilities company Duke Energy Corp. is due to report its fourth-quarter results before market opens Thursday, February 5, with a conference call scheduled for 10:00am ET.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $0.26 per share on revenues of $3.14 billion for the quarter.

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Posted in Categories: Economy, Eurozone, Releases, Switzerland, UK, USA.

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