Wall Street to start on a mixed note post-Fed

Wall Street is set for a mixed opening despite the US Federal Reserve showing no signs of rushing to remove its support for the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is forecast to climb 137 points or 0.35% but the S&P 500 is expected to open just 0.1% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite is indicated 0.26% lower. The fall in the Nasdaq comes as two of its constituents are expected to open lower. Facebook Inc is down nearly 3.5% in pre-market trading following its results after the market closed on Wednesday, while PayPal Inc is also lower, down more than 5%. Both warned of a slowdown in growth, which has not gone down well. Meanwhile, Amazon Inc is due to report results after the market closes today. The second-quarter figures are expected to show strong growth after its Prime Day sales event was brought forward from July to June, and they will also be the last overseen by Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as chief executive at the start of this month. There is also the small matter of the debut of trading platform Robinhood, which yesterday priced its shares at the lower end of the expected range. Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK said: "It’s.. a big day for Robinhood as it gets set for its first day of trading as a public company, when the US markets open later this afternoon, in what is expected to be one of the biggest IPO’s this year, after Coinbase’s direct listing. It’s a particularly challenging time for IPO’s with sentiment as it is now and given how, after a lot of hype, Coinbase is now trading below its $250 indicative price after a big surge on day one." Before that come more indicators of the state of the US economy. The latest GDP figures are expected to show the economy grew by an annualised 8.5% in the second quarter, following a 6.4% increase in the previous three months, helped by stimulus cheques from the government. Also due are the weekly jobless claims, which rose unexpectedly to 419,000 last time round but are forecast to fall back to 385,000. Four things to watch for on Thursday: Aside from the major earnings today from the likes of Amazon, investors will also be eyeing numbers from firms including telecoms firm T-Mobile US Inc, real estate group America Tower Corp and capital markets firm S&P Global Inc Shares in Uber Technologies Inc may draw attention following reports one of its major backers, SoftBank, plans to sell a third of its stake in the ride-hailing firm Uber’s Chinese peer Didi Inc is also in focus amid reports it could delist from the market On the macro front, aside from US GDP data and jobless claims, there may be some interest in pending home sales data