U.S. Stocks May Move To The Upside In Early Trading

(RTTNews) - Stocks may move to the upside early in the session on Thursday as trading resumes following the Juneteenth holiday on Wednesday. The major index futures are currently pointing to a higher open for the markets, with the S&P 500 futures up by 0.3 percent.

A notable advance by shares of Nvidia (NVDA) may contribute to early strength on Wall Street, as the AI darling is surging by 3.7 percent in pre-market trading.

Nvidia shot up by 3.5 percent during trading on Tuesday, surpassing Microsoft (MSFT) as the world's most valuable public company.

The futures remained positive after the Labor Department released a report showing a modest pullback by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended June 15th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims dipped to 238,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level of 243,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to fall to 235,000 from the 242,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Meanwhile, a separate report released by the Commerce Department unexpectedly showed a steep drop in new residential construction in the U.S. in the month of May.

The Commerce Department said housing starts plunged by 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 1.277 million in May after surging by 4.1 percent to a revised rate of 1.352 million in April.