U.S. stocks set to open slightly lower

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

REUTERS - Wall Street looked set to open slightly lower on Thursday, with investors seemingly wary of taking on risk ahead of Donald Trump's swearing-in as U.S. president on Friday.

After having driven Wall Street to record highs in a post-election rally, investors are on the sidelines as they await Trump's inaugural speech to get a steer on his policies.

Markets are also eyeing a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower for the fourth straight session on Wednesday, its longest losing streak since early October, as energy stocks were hit by falling oil prices.

"Investors' concerns on Trump delivering his campaign promises is probably the real 'Fear Factor'," Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial wrote in a note.

Dow e-minis were down 24 points, or 0.12 percent at 8:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT), with 13,933 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis were down 2.5 points, or 0.11 percent, with 86,650 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 3.75 points, or 0.07 percent, on volume of 17,569 contracts.

With the fourth-quarter earnings season picking up pace, investors will focus on Dow components IBM and American Express, which are scheduled to report results after market close.

In an appearance on Wednesday, Yellen said the U.S. economy was getting closer to running on its own, but soothed some nerves by adding that it made sense to raise interest rates gradually.

Yellen is expected to speak on monetary policy at Stanford University at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Investors have been worried that Trump's pro-growth policy proposals may boost inflation, forcing the central bank to increase the pace of rate hikes.

Yellen's comments indicated that the plan to raise rates three times this year is not "farfetched", Cardillo said.

A report on jobless claims showed that 234,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, far fewer than 254,000 that economists expected.

Stocks moving premarket included Netflix that was up 6.8 percent at $142.32 after the streaming video provider said it added far more subscribers in its latest quarter than what was expected.

Tesla rose 3.9 percent to $247.75 after Panasonic said it aimed to extend its partnership with the electric carmaker into self-driving technology.

Mallinckrodt was up 4.7 percent at $48.70 after agreeing to pay $400 million to settle a U.S. probe on drug pricing.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)