NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street is set for a slightly higher open, ahead of weekly jobless claims, and with the Federal Reserve's decision on monetary easing still the market's main focus.
* At 4:48 a.m. ET, futures for the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all up 0.1 percent.
* The FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of leading European shares was up 0.4 percent at 1,085.35 points with France Telecom among the companies to gain after reporting results.
* The dollar slipped on Thursday, relinquishing some of the gains made earlier this week as U.S. Treasury yields pulled back from a recent rise as investors continued to recalibrate expectations for U.S. monetary easing.
* Most leading economists expect the Federal Reserve to buy between $80 billion and $100 billion worth of assets per month under a new program to bolster the struggling economy, a Reuters poll found on Wednesday.
* Weekly initial jobless claims will earn a close look, in part because the next Fed policy-setting meeting is before the October employment report, making initial claims one of the last jobs-related indicators the Fed might take into account. The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for benefits is expected to have ticked up slightly, to 453,000 from 452,000, according to a Reuters survey of 46 economists.
* Exxon Mobil , the largest publicly traded oil company, is expected to report higher quarterly profit and production as crude oil prices rose from a year-ago and natural gas output climbed.
* Royal Dutch Shell beat all analyst forecasts by reporting an 18 percent jump in third-quarter profits thanks to higher oil and gas prices, setting a trend for the sector. The shares rose 1 percent.
* Potash Corp , the world's largest fertilizer maker and object of BHP Billiton's $39 billion hostile bid, reports quarterly results.
(source:abcnews.go.com)
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