Stocks ticked higher Thursday as oil prices pared their steepest declines and reports from U.S. retailers beat expectations.
Data also showed the number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell slightly last week, pointing to a firming labor market.
Futures pointed to a 0.3% opening gain for the S&P 500, which closed Wednesday slightly shy of its all-time high reached last week.
In premarket trading, shares of Macy’s rose nearly 12% as the department-store operator reported stronger-than-expected same-store sales and plans to close 100 more stores, or about 15% of its base.
Kohl’s gained nearly 10% after the retailer reported a surprise increase in profit even as it cut its earnings forecast for the year.
Shares in Chesapeake Energy gained 6% after the oil and gas producer agreed to pay nearly $340 million to exit the Barnett Shale in Texas.
Most energy and mining stocks retreated Thursday, however, as volatile oil prices took their toll. Brent crude oil was last flat at $44.06 a barrel after falling below $43.50 earlier in the day. Signs of continued growth in U.S. crude stocks and record output from Saudi Arabia have depressed oil prices, which are down around 6% in the past month.
In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 Index fell 0.4%, pressured by the earlier fall in oil prices and a large number of companies going ex-dividend, which tends to depress shares.
The Stoxx Europe 600 erased morning losses to rise 0.3%, however, as gains in defensive stocks such as utilities and food and beverage companies outweighed the losses in commodity-linked shares.
Earlier, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% as oil prices fell, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5%.
Stocks in Hong Kong rose on reports that the Shenzhen-Hong Kong exchange trading link, which could channel cash into Hong Kong stocks, will be started soon.
Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.
Outside the energy sector, global stocks have been little moved in recent sessions, after European bourses recouped their post-Brexit losses and U.S. stocks notched all-time highs.
Even as global growth remains low, the feeling in the market is that “there’s no other alternative but to remain invested,” said Charles Hepworth, investment director at GAM.
Central banks are continuing to ease their policy, he said, which has helped support stocks and sentiment toward risk.
New Zealand’s central bank lowered its main interest rate to a record-low 2% on Thursday and signaled further cuts were likely, but the kiwi dollar spiked against the greenback as markets had anticipated a more dramatic cut.
The dollar was otherwise slightly firmer, inching up 0.3% against the euro and 0.2% against the yen.
In bonds, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note inched up slightly to 1.511% following two sessions of declines. Yields move inversely to prices.
Ten-year U.K. government debt last yielded 0.528% after some short-dated gilts briefly returned to negative territory Thursday morning.
The gilt market has driven bond yields lower across the board this week amid concerns about scarcity in the U.K.’s debt market as the Bank of England embarks on its purchase program.
“The U.K. is really defying the rest of the global bond market,” Mr. Hepworth said, pushing yields to incredibly low levels.
