Stocks May Continue To Experience Choppy Trading - U.S. Commentary

(RTTNews) - Stocks may show a lack of direction in early trading on Thursday, extending the lackluster performance seen in the two previous sessions. The major index futures are currently mixed, as the Dow futures are down by 21 points but the Nasdaq futures are up by 5 points.

Continued uncertainty about the situation in Greece may lead to choppy trading on Wall Street, as traders keep a close eye on the ongoing debt negotiations.

While Germany has reportedly rejected a proposal to extend Greece's loan agreement for six months, traders largely remain optimistic a deal will eventually be reached.

However, the longer the talks go on without a deal, the greater the concerns that Greece could exit from the eurozone, potentially destabilizing the currency bloc.

In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department recently released a report showing that initial jobless claims pulled back by more than expected in the week ended February 14th.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 283,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 304,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to drop to 290,000.

Separate reports on leading U.S. economic indicators and Philadelphia-area manufacturing activity are due to be released not long after the start of trading.

Among individual stocks, shares of Wal-Mart (WMT) are moving lower in pre-market trading after the retail giant reported better than expected fourth quarter earnings but on revenues that came in below estimates.

Wal-Mart also announced plans to give pay raises to approximately 500,000 full-time and part-time employees in the first half of the current fiscal year.

After turning higher over the course of the trading day on Tuesday, stocks once again recovered from an early move to the downside during trading on Wednesday. The major averages were unable to sustain the upward move, however, ending the day roughly flat.

While the tech-heavy Nasdaq inched up 7.10 points or 0.1 percent to 4,906.36, reaching its best closing level since early 2000, the Dow slipped 17.73 points or 0.1 percent to 18,029.85 and the S&P 500 edged down 0.66 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 2,099.68.