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Stock futures, oil prices flat ahead of closely watched U.S. fuel inventory report.
October 13, 2005: 7:54 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks were looking for direction early Thursday ahead of a closely watched report on U.S. fuel inventories.

U.S. stock futures were up in early trading, although a comparison to fair value indicated a flat or mixed opening for stocks,

Oil prices were also essentially flat ahead of the weekly inventory report at 10:30 a.m. ET, which is a day later than normal this week due to the Columbus Day holiday.

The November light crude futures contract for NYMEX was up 5 cents to $64.17 a barrel in electronic trading, while the November contract for Brent crude gained 7 cents to $60.64.

"There are quite a few platforms still out of service throughout the Gulf," said Bill Adams, chief energy and capital markets strategist for LaSalle Futures in Chicago. "Everyone is waiting to see what the builds are going to be. If they show a build, you could see a sell-off in oil, and that could give stocks at least a little bit of lift."

Major markets in Asia closed mostly lower Thursday, although Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed slightly higher. Major European markets were lower in early trading.

Treasury prices were lower, lifting the yield on the 10-year note to 4.49 percent from the 4.44 percent level late Wednesday. The dollar gained ground against the euro and the yen.

Economic reports Thursday include the reading on the U.S. trade deficit for August. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast the gap between the nation's imports and exports rose to $59.5 billion from $57.9 billion in July on higher oil prices.

In corporate news, online search company Google (Research) and No. 1 cable operator Comcast (Research) are holding talks with Time Warner (Research) about a possible purchase of a stake in its America Online unit, a source close to the situation told CNN/Money, which is a unit of Time Warner.

Dow component McDonald's (Research) reported strong sales and said its earnings report next week would be slightly better than forecasts.


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