U.S. stock index futures dipped early Thursday, after the major averages posted a third straight day of gains as traders bet that the omicron variant’s economic impacts won’t be as severe as initially thought.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials slumbered 134 points or 0.4%, to 35,612.
Futures for the S&P 500 ditched 17 points, or 0.4%, to 4,682.
Futures for the NASDAQ retreated 67.25 points, or 0.4%, to 16,325.
Stocks were set to give back some of their gains in recent days, with the moves higher spurred by the belief that the omicron variant of COVID looks less severe than earlier forms.
Several travel-related stocks, which led the market higher throughout the week, were lower Thursday morning. Shares of Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands fell more than 1% pre-market, as did Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line. Airlines were slightly lower too.
Separately, shares of Rent The Runway tumbled by 10% in the premarket after reporting swelling losses and lower than pre-pandemic subscriber growth for its most recent quarter.
Still, there were some positive morning moves as well. CVS gained 3% in early morning trading after it issued upbeat guidance ahead of its Investor Day. Home retailer RH soared about 8% pre-market after it reported blowout earnings and lifted the low end of its revenue outlook.
The moves come a day ahead of important inflation news as the U.S. Labor Department on Friday releases the consumer price index for November. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the year-over-year growth rate to be 6.7%. If that is the case, it will mark the biggest move since June 1982.
There are some notable earnings reports on Thursday, including from Oracle, Broadcom and Lululemon, all of which report after the market closes.
Federal Reserve officials are expected to react to the burst in inflation by announcing next week that it will begin pulling back on its economic aid.
Weekly jobless claims data will be released on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. on Wall Street. Economists are expecting the number of first-time-filers to come in at 211,000, according to estimates from Dow Jones.
Overseas, markets in Japan docked 0.5% Thursday, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong moved forward 1.1%.
Oil prices gave back 85 cents to $71.51 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices sank $9.20 to $1,776.30 U.S. an ounce.