The US equity futures were trading higher Thursday morning, adding to the gains from the previous session.
The major futures indexes suggest a gain of 0.2% when the opening bell rings on Wall Street.
The previous meeting minutes showed that the U.S. stocks posted modest gains as investors looked at the possibility of another rate hike from the Federal Reserve at the July meeting. This was aimed at curtailing red hot inflation.
On Thursday, U.S. crude traded at $98 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost value Wednesday, falling 97 cents to $98.53 a barrel. Brent crude, the price basis for international trading, was traded at $100 per barrel in London. It dropped to $100.69 the previous session, and dropped $2.08 at the same time.
The Energy Information Administration released its inventory report last week, INTERN ECON 101. After a decline of almost 3 million barrels the previous week, crude stockpiles are expected to fall by a little more than one million barrels.
Expectations are for 230,000, little changed from 231,000 the previous week and holding slightly above pre-pandemic levels.
The June employment report will be released Friday morning.
The U.S. trade balance for May is expected to narrow for a second month to $84.9 billion.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 1.5%, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 0.1% and China's Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.3%.
Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.4% to 3,845. On Wednesday, the deadline for this article was 08:08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.2% to 31,037. The Nasdaq composite added 0.3% to 11,361.