Wall St. points to flat open; Dow within sight of 20,000

Investing.com - Investing.com - U.S. stock markets pointed to a flat open on Wednesday morning, with the Dow remaining within striking distance of the psychologically important milestone of 20,000 mark in light pre-holiday trade.
The blue-chip Dow futures inched up 5 points, or 0.03%, by 6:56AM ET (11:56GMT), the S&P 500 futures inched down 2 points, or 0.08%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures shed 3 points, or 0.05%.
Wall Street ended higher on Tuesday, with the Dow and Nasdaq Composite closing at record highs in a rally fueled by optimism about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's policies.
Since the U.S. election in early November, the Dow has surged 11% and has posted 17 record closes on expectations for Trump's fiscal stimulus and stronger U.S. growth.
Market players will focus on a number of earning reports Wednesday. Accenture (NYSE:ACN), Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX), Finish Line (NASDAQ:FINL) and Winnebago (NYSE:WGO) are all set to report before the bell. Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) and Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) are due to report after the bell.
On the data front, Wednesday will see existing home sales data for November released at 10:00 AM ET (15:00GMT).
Among active pre-market movers, Nike (NYSE:NKE) saw shares rise more than 3% after the world's No. 1 footwear maker, reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue, helped by higher demand from Western Europe, Greater China and emerging markets.
On the downside, global shipping giant FedEx (NYSE:FDX) slumped almost 4% after reporting earnings that missed Wall Street expectations after Tuesday's closing bell.
Elsewhere, European stock markets were mostly lower in light pre-Christmas trade as concerns over the Italian and Spanish banking sector weighed on sentiment.
Earlier, in Asia, the Shanghai Composite in China closed 1.15% higher, while the Nikkei in Japan closed 0.26% lower.
In the currency market, the dollar slipped from the 14-year high reached the previous day, as some investors took profits ahead of the year-end holidays.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, dipped 0.15% to 103.11 in early trade. The index climbed to 103.62 on Tuesday, the strongest level since December 2002.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose for the fourth session in a row, as market players awaited fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on oil supplies at 10:30AM ET (15:30GMT), amid analyst expectations for a decline of 2.5 million barrels.
U.S. crude was up 36 cents, or 0.7%, to $53.66, within sight of a one-and-a-half-year peak of $54.51 logged on December 12, while Brent tacked on 35 cents, or 0.65%, to $55.70 a barrel, not far from a 17-month high of $57.89 touched earlier in the week.
Gold prices edged higher, but continued to struggle near last week's 11-month lows, as the possibility of further U.S. interest rate hikes next year weighed.