LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock index futures were under pressure Wednesday morning, signaling a lower open for Wall Street after three days of gains.
"What we see today is more a pause after the strong showing in the last few days," said Philippe Gijsels, strategist at Fortis Bank.
S&P 500 futures fell 11.80 points to 841.40 and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 11.25 points to 1,124.25. Dow industrial futures declined 78 points to 8,367.
Oil futures rose 84 cents to $51.61 a barrel and the dollar was little changed versus the Japanese yen at 95.14 yen.
"Two steps forward and two steps back -- that's the only way to characterize the U.S. trading session," said Tom Hougaard, a strategist at City Index. "As a matter of fact it seems we are working the ranges up and down, in perfect harmony with the dollar/yen, as crazy as it sounds."
Strategists were bracing for further recessionary signals from U.S. economic data. October consumer spending figures set for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern are expected to show a 1% decline, according to a MarketWatch survey of economists. That follows a 0.3% fall in September.
Weekly jobless claims are scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. as well -- a day earlier than usual due to Thanksgiving.
At the same time, October durable goods orders are forecast to show a 2.5% fall after a 0.8% rise in September.
The Nikkei 225 lost 1.3 % in Tokyo. In London, the FTSE 100 was down 1.8%.
Strategists said volumes were expected to remain light ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday.
U.S. stocks rose for the third session in a row Tuesday, with indexes posting small gains after initially surging in the wake of a massive government effort to boost consumer lending.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 36.08 points to finish at 8,479.47. The S&P 500 added 5.58 points and the Nasdaq Composite fell 7.29 points.
