LONDON (MarketWatch) - U.S. stock futures slipped Thursday as the fears over the financial and automotive sectors as well as the broader economy that have punished the market by nearly 8% just this week showed no signs of abating.
S&P 500 futures fell 16.1 points to 796.40 and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 18.5 points to 1,074.00.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ) dropped 134 points.
Oil futures slumped $2.76 to $51.34 a barrel.
U.S. stocks were crushed to five-and-a-half year lows on Wednesday, with credit market-led fears and Citigroup's $17 billion balance sheet addition punishing markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 427 points, the S&P 500 lost 52 points and the Nasdaq Composite fell 52 points.
Prince Alwaleed is going to increase his stake in Citigroup up to 5%, according to a report, which helped the hard-hit banking stock rise 3.1% in pre-market trade. Also on the financial front, GMAC applied to become a bank.
Overseas, the Swiss National Bank made a surprise and steep one percentage point rate cut.
Still, markets were lower on the session.
"The next 48 hours could be volatile due to the uncertainty of the bailout of the big 3 U.S. automakers, weak financials and options expirations on Friday," noted strategists at BNP Paribas.
Complicating matters, the asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities that many financials hold have seen pressure as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that the government won't use the Troubled Assets Relief Program to buy debt securities.
Weekly U.S. initial jobless claims rose by 27,000 to 542,000 in the week ending Nov. 15, the highest since July 1992, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Leading indicators for October and a Philadelphia-area economic gauge for November also are due for release.
The yield on two-year U.S. government bonds slipped a basis point to 1.06% as the march toward 1% continued. Paul Rodriguez, a technical strategist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, suggested buying two-year note futures until equities find a floor.
Most of the major earnings will come after the close when Dell , Limited Brands and The Gap report results.
Grand Canyon Education priced its initial public offering at $12, the low end of a twice-lowered range as it ended the longest IPO drought in a decade.
Overseas, the Nikkei 225 skidded 6.9% in Tokyo, while in London, the FTSE 100 fell 1.6%.
Job cuts between 1,400 and 2,700 each were announced by AstraZeneca , Rolls-Royce, Sandvik and PSA Peugeot Citroen.
