U.S. stocks looked to open slightly higher on Thursday as oil prices held below $50 a barrel, while beverage company PepsiCo Inc. posted a rise in quarterly profit. In other corporate news, shares of The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. may fall a day after the company issued a third-quarter profit warning after a series of hurricanes pummeled the East Coast in recent weeks. Investors will also be keeping an eye out for news from drug company Merck & Co. . The company is holding a 9 a.m. EDT press conference in New York City with its chief executive to discuss new information on a current product. S&P 500 futures inched up nearly a point, above fair value accounting for interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract, indicating the market would open higher.
Dow Jones industrial index futures rose 5 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures edged up a half point. On the final day of the quarter, a period in which the major U.S. stock indexes have all lost ground, and with earnings season heating up next week, a handful of companies are due to report. Family Dollar Stores is expected to post earnings before the bell, and Research In Motion , maker of the BlackBerry wireless e-mail device, will release results after the bell. U.S. light crude prices gained throughout the morning and was up 13 cents to $49.64 a barrel in electronic trading, still below record highs above $50 a barrel achieved earlier in the week. The recent spike in crude prices has fueled worries of high energy costs pinching corporate profits. A rise in U.S. crude inventories and a truce in Nigeria have relieved concerns over a potential severe supply disruption as the northern hemisphere heads into winter. "We'll be looking at what happens with the price of oil. If oil goes down, stocks go up," said Benjamin Pace, managing director at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. "Much of the market movement has had to do with the fluctuation of oil prices, and clearly $50 a barrel was scaring people." Pace said he was also keeping an eye on weekly jobless claims, saying that if the figure hovers in the mid-300,000 level that would be "generally positive" for the market.
Investors will also pay attention to a crucial debate tonight between U.S. President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry that will give voters their first chance to size up the two White House candidates side by side. Polls indicate as many as one-quarter of American voters may be swayed by the three scheduled debates between the presidential candidates and one debate matching Vice President Dick Cheney against Democratic contender John Edwards. Shares of American International Group Inc. , the world's largest insurer by market value, will be watched a day after the company said that the U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into whether AIG helped a major banking client move bad loans off its books. On the economic data front, the government will release monthly personal income and personal consumption at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). Personal income is expected to rise 0.3 percent, according to economists surveyed by . Personal consumption is seen rising 0.1 percent. The Labor Department releases first-time claims for jobless benefits for the week ended Sept. 25 at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Economists surveyed by forecast jobless claims of 340,000 for that week, compared with 350,000 in the previous week. Also, the Purchasing Management-Chicago's index is released at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), with economists forecasting it to increase to 57.5 from 57.3 a month earlier.///