LONDON -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI ) may open slightly higher this morning if weekly jobless claims figures deliver the forecast improvement. The market might also take a keen interest in the conclusion from the European Central Bank's monthly meeting, expected at 8:30 EDT.
However, good news early in the day could be overshadowed by new data showing that productivity is falling while labor costs continue to rise. A small fall in the ISM non-manufacturing index is also expected.
Early pre-market trading indicated that companies likely to be active today would include Salesforce.com and Chesapeake Energy. A fall in first-quarter profits at Safeway earlier this week also attracted pre-market activity, with the shares trending downwards.
In the U.K., the FTSE 100 (INDEX: ^FTSE ) rose by 0.5% through the morning in anticipation of supportive news from the European Central Bank. Decent first-quarter results from health-care giant Smith & Nephew (NYSE: SNN ) and a broker upgrade for InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE: IHG ) may lift the ADRs of these companies when the market opens.
However, Smith & Nephew is not the U.K. blue chip that has attracted billionaire Warren Buffett to invest more than $1 billion. The legendary investor recently bought a famous British name with global expansion potential -- and you can discover the identity of the company and the price he paid in this special free report.
Later today, investors may focus on the food sector, as both Sara Lee and Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT ) issue their latest quarterly figures.
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