08:15 AM EDT, 04/18/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US equity futures were cautiously higher Thursday as traders looked ahead to weekly jobless claims and earnings from streaming giant Netflix ( NFLX ) .

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures, S&P 500 futures, and Nasdaq futures were all up 0.3%.

Netflix ( NFLX ) is scheduled to report quarterly earnings after the closing bell.

Oil prices were lower, with front-month global benchmarks North Sea Brent crude down 0.6% at $86.77 and US West Texas Intermediate crude down 0.5% at $81.77, after official data showed a 2.7-million-barrel weekly increase in US commercial crude stockpiles, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Weekly jobless claims, scheduled for release at 8:30 am ET, are expected to rise to 215,000 in the week ended April 13 from 211,000 claims in the prior week. The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing index is seen coming in at 1.5 for April after March's 3.2 level, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Existing home sales, due at 10 am ET, are seen dropping to a 4.2 million annualized rate in March from 4.38 million previously. Forecasters expect a 0.1% downtick in the index of leading economic indicators for March following a 0.1% uptick in February.