Before the Bell: Natural Gas Production Comes Out of Deep Freeze, GE Healthcare to Debut in S&P 500

Investing

Published: December 29, 2022 7:40 am

Premarket action on Thursday had all three major U.S. indexes trading higher. The Dow Jones industrials were up 0.21%, the S&P 500 up 0.43% and the Nasdaq 0.66% higher.

All 11 market sectors closed lower Wednesday, with energy (−2.22%) and technology (−1.64%) slipping the most. Financials (−0.42%) and health care (−0.64%) posted the day’s smallest losses. The Dow closed down 1.1%, the S&P 500 down 1.2% and the Nasdaq down 1.35% Wednesday.

Trading volume was lighter than the 30-day average, and traders, who began the day on an upbeat note, lost whatever conviction they started with, as equities traded around closing lows by noon. A few half-hearted bounces later, markets closed with a thud. Crude oil opened near $80 a barrel and closed down about $1.00. Crude traded below $78 early Thursday morning.

Before the opening bell Thursday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its weekly report on new claims for unemployment benefits. Economists expect new claims to rise by 4,000 to 220,000 for the week ending December 24. Data for continuing claims lags by a week.

Category	Dec 17	Dec 10	Dec 3	Nov 26	Nov 19
Initial Claims	216K	214K	231K	226K	241K
4-Wk Moving Avg	222K	228K	230K	229K	227K
Continuing Claims		1672K	1678K	1670K	1609K
4-Wk Moving Avg		1657K	1627K	1582K	1539K

After markets open, the U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly reports on petroleum and natural gas inventories. Last week, the EIA reported that crude inventories dropped by 5.89 million barrels in the week ending December 16. The American Petroleum Institute reported late Wednesday that the crude oil inventory dropped by about 3.1 million barrels last week.

Natural gas production has been hit hard by the severe winter storm that pounded virtually the entire country last week. Production from the Appalachian Basin of Pennsylvania and Ohio fell by as much as 27% due to frozen wells and equipment. Toby Rice, CEO of EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT), the country’s largest gas producer, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that cold weather in the Appalachian Basin cut EQT’s production by 30%, but he expects production to be back at normal levels of around 5 billion cubic feet per day by the end of the week.