US STOCKS-Wall St set for muted open with earnings, economic data in focus
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Disney gains as board hikes dividend
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Spirit Airlines expects positive operating cash flow from Q2
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Arm jumps after raising FY forecasts, Q3 results beat
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PayPal falls after flat FY24 profit growth forecast
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Jobless claims fall more than expected last week
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Futures: Dow flat, S&P down 0.09%, Nasdaq down 0.11%
(Updated at 8:59 a.m. ET/1359 GMT)
By Johann M Cherian and Ankika Biswas
Feb 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a muted open on Thursday following big-ticket earnings reports from Walt Disney and Spirit Airlines, while investors also parsed softer-than-expected jobs data and remarks from policymakers on interest rate cuts.
Walt Disney gained 7.6% in premarket trading after the media giant hit back at activist investors with a market-beating profit, a gaming investment and plans to launch an ESPN streaming service in 2025. It also announced a $3 billion share repurchase plan and a 50% increase in dividend.
Spirit Airlines expects to operate with a positive cash flow from the second quarter after reporting a narrower-than-expected loss. However, the stock was last down 2.5% in choppy trade.
More than half of the S&P 500 companies have reported quarterly earnings, with 81.2% surpassing expectations, compared with a long-term average of 67%, according to LSEG data earlier this week.
On the economic data front, a Labor Department report showed Americans filing for state unemployment benefits dipped to 218,000 during the week ended Feb. 3, compared with economists' forecast of 220,000.
"We still have a pretty tight labor market at this point, when you combine that with the most recent employment reports," said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy at Glenmede.
"This also comes at a time when some of the more recent economic reports are holding up better than the Fed expected, with evidence that inflation hasn't really settled down to 2%."
Meanwhile, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said recent stronger-than-expected data on the U.S. economy may be partly due to the difficulty of making accurate seasonal adjustments around the beginning of a new year.
On Wednesday, the benchmark S&P 500 notched a new record high, a whisker away from 5,000 points, as investors looked past uncertainty on the timing of interest rate cuts and jitters around the stability of some regional banks.
The Nasdaq is about 2.8% away from breaching its all-time high hit in November 2021, driven by an ongoing rally in technology and tech-adjacent stocks.
At 8:59 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 19 points, or 0.05%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.75 points, or 0.09%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 19.25 points, or 0.11%.
New York Community Bancorp lost 2.2% a day after the lender sought to bolster investor confidence by appointing a new executive chairman and said it could cut exposure to the troubled commercial real estate segment.
Arm soared 28.5% after the British tech company forecast quarterly sales and profit above expectations as customers aim to design new chips for artificial intelligence work, generating higher royalties.
PayPal's forecast of flat growth in adjusted profit for the current year overshadowed its market-beating earnings report, sending shares of the payments giant down 8.1%.
Ralph Lauren gained 6% following a third-quarter revenue beat, while apparel maker Under Armour climbed 5% after raising its annual profit forecast.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shounak Dasgupta)
