Active broad-market exchange-traded funds in Thursday's pre-market session:
VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF ( GDX ): -1.2%
SPDR S&P 500 ( SPY ): -0.2%
SPDR Select Sector Fund - Financial ( XLF ): -0.2%
iShares MSCI Emerging Index Fund ( EEM ): -0.4%
Direxion Daily Gold Miners Index Bull 3X Shares ( NUGT ): -3.4%
Broad-Market Indicators
Most broad-market exchange-traded funds, including SPY, IWM, IVV and others, were lower. Actively traded PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) was down 0.1%.
U.S. stock futures were looking to open the regular session in the negative territory as investors remained cautious ahead of Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls report for September.
In economic data news, weekly jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 249,000 versus forecasts for a total of 256,000. Continuing jobless claims declined 6,000 to 2.06 million.
Power Play: Technology
Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK), iShares Dow Jones US Technology ETF (IYW), iShares S&P North American Technology ETF (IGM) and iShares S&P North American Technology-Software Index (IGV) were inactive. SPDR S&P International Technology Sector ETF (IPK) was also flat.
Semiconductor ETFs SPDR S&P Semiconductor (XSD) and Semiconductor Sector Index Fund (SOXX) were flat in pre-market trading .
Twitter ( TWTR ) was down 16.7% aftertechnology newswebsite Recode reported Alphabet's Google (GOOG, GOOGL) isn't interested in buying the social-networking service. In a report published Wednesday, Recode also said that Apple (AAPL) was unlikely to be one of the possible buyers, and that Disney (DIS), which had also considered a bid, is finally not going to make an offer, citing unidentified sources familiar with the situation.
Winners and Losers
Financial
Select Financial Sector SPDRs ( XLF ) was down 0.2%. Daily Financial Bull 3X shares (FAS) was up 1% while its bearish counterpart, FAZ was up 0.3%.
Barclays PLC o(BCS) was up 0.3% after it said it has agree to sell its UK Trust business to trust, corporate and fund services provider ZEDRA for an undisclosed amount. Barclays said that, while the UK Trust business is "attractive" and has "strong growth potential", it is no longer considered central to the bank's strategy and was moved into the Barclays Non-Core division of assets to be sold off.
Energy
Dow Jones U.S. Energy Fund (IYE) was flat while Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) was down 0.1%.
Renewable Energy Group (REGI) reported $34.5 million upgrades its Danville, Illinois biorefinery have been completed, allowing the annual 45-million gallon facility to use a wider array of feedstocks. Renewable Group said it acquired the biorefinery in 2010 from Blackhawk Biofuels, and the company now has an annual capacity 452 million gallons of biofuels refined from natural fats, oils and greases, at 11 facilities.
Commodities
Crude was up 0.5% while natural gas futures up 0.6%. United States Oil Fund (USO) was up 0.2% and United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) was down 0.1%.
Gold was down 0.2% and SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) was down 0.1%. Silver was down 0.6% while iShares Silver Trust (SLV) was down 0.3%.
Consumer
Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP), iShares Dow Jones US Consumer Goods (IYK) and Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC) were inactive.
Consumer Discretionary SPDR (XLY) and retail funds SPDR S&P Retail (XRT), PowerShares Dynamic Retail (PMR) and Market Vectors Retail ETF (RTH) were flat.
Fred's (FRED) said total sales for September decreased 5.5% to $199.9 million from $211.4 million in September 2015. Comparable store sales for five-week period ended Oct. 1 decreased 4.9% compared with an increase of 4.2% in the year-earlier period. Fred's total sales for the year-to-date period increased 0.5% to $1.44 billion from $1.43 billion for the same period last year. On a comparable store basis, year-to-date sales decreased 1.5% versus an increase of 1.3% for the year-earlier period.
Health Care
Health Care SPDR (XLV), Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) and iShares Dow Jones US Healthcare (IYH) were flat. Biotechnology fund iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (IBB) was down 1%.
PTC Therapeutics (PTCT) was up 7.2% said Thursday its therapy, Ataluren, had a considerable impact on patients with non-ambulatory nonsense mutation Duchenne muscular dystrophy finding a four year difference in respiratory sufficiency compared to patients without the treatment. The biopharmaceutical company said it was preparing to present new data on the benefits of ataluren and its ability to preserve lung function in the patients later in the day Thursday. The company found that FVC, a key indicator of respiratory insufficiency that progresses with age, was at a mean age of 16.5 years for treated patients with ataluren, versus 12.5 years for those who were not. The company said that the treated patients also saw an absolute FVC that was 13.8% higher than that of untreated patients, which came from a natural history study from the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
