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NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Stock futures were little changed on Thursday as a jump in quarterly profit at JPMorgan Chase & Co(JPM.N) was overshadowed by investor angst about the future of lender CIT Group Inc and caution ahead of a key report on the labor market.
JPMorgan's second quarter results topped Wall Street's estimates, continuing a stream of reassuring news on bank earnings after Goldman Sachs Group (GS.N) posted similarly stronger results on Tuesday.
But the market was confronted by news that bankruptcy loomed over small-business lender CIT (CIT.N) a day after Wall Street racked its biggest three-day gain since March.
Talks between the government and CIT about a potential bailout collapsed on Wednesday, a reminder that fallout from the financial crisis and the recession is far from over.
"The market is going to continue to look for fuel from earnings," said Andre Bakhos, president of Princeton Financial Group in Princeton, New Jersey. "The concern is that CIT does not appear to be getting a government bailout."
S&P 500 futures were 1.9 points lower and were about even with fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 4 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 4 points.
Investors will be closely monitoring the weekly number of initial filings for jobless benefits, expected not to change from the previous week's 565,000. Continuing claims are expected to inch lower to 6.850 million, from 6.883 million the week before. This key data is due at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
Other data on tap for Thursday includes the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's release of its July business activity survey at 10 a.m. EDT. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a reading of -5.0 versus -2.2 in June.
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is scheduled to testify before a Congressional panel about the takeover of Merrill lynch by Bank of America at 9 a.m. EDT.
(Editing by Padraic Cassidy)
