NEW YORK - U.S. equity futures traded higher a day after shares tumbled more than 4 percent. The major futures indexes are indicating an increase of 1.8 percent when trading begins on Thursday. RELATED: CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX launches national hub for COVID-19 news and updates Economists expect the next batch of U.S.
jobless claims, due to be reported Thursday, to blow past last week's total of nearly 3.3 million initial claims. That was quintuple the prior record.
A report on Wednesday said private U.S. employers cut 27,000 jobs last month, though that was milder than expected. The survey used data from March before the number of people seeking unemployment benefits exploded to a record.