07:11 AM EST, 02/20/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The main US stock measures were trending downwards in Thursday's premarket activity as traders await the latest round of corporate earnings, including results of retail giants Walmart ( WMT ) and Alibaba Group ( BABA ) .

Standard & Poor's 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2% each before the opening bell. The majority of Asian exchanges were tracking in the red while European bourses were mostly pointing higher midday on the continent.

Along with Walmart ( WMT ) and Alibaba ( BABA ), Southern Co. ( SO ) , NetEase ( NTES ) , CenterPoint Energy ( CNP ) , Builders FirstSource ( BLDR ) , Pool (POOL), Unity Software ( U ) , Hasbro ( HAS ) , Choice Hotels International ( CHH ) , Freshpet ( FRPT ) , Wayfair ( W ) , Shake Shack ( SHAK ) , among others, report their financial statements early Thursday.

Booking Holdings ( BKNG ) , Copart ( CPRT ) , Newmont ( NEM ) , Consolidated Edison ( ED ) and Rivian Automotive ( RIVN ) post earnings after the markets close.

Shares of Palantir Technologies ( PLTR ) were down 3% following media reports that the US government is looking to cut military spending. Carvana ( CVNA ) dropped 8.8% amid the online used car retailer's latest quarterly results.

On the economic calendar, the weekly jobless claims bulletin is out at 8:30 am ET, along with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's manufacturing index for February. The leading indicators index for January is due at 10 am. The weekly EIA natural gas and petroleum inventories reports post at 10:30 am and 11 am, respectively.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee is scheduled to speak at 9:35 am, while St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem speaks at 12:05 pm. Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr is set to speak at 2:30 pm, while Fed Governor Adriana Kugler speaks at 5 pm.

In premarket action, bitcoin rose 1% to $97,232, West Texas Intermediate crude oil edged up 0.1% to $72.34 a barrel, yields on 10-year Treasuries slipped 0.4 basis points to 4.53% and gold inclined 1.1% to $2,969 an ounce.