us stock futures traded slightly lower in early premarket trade on the final trading day of 2021 the dow jones dropped around 90 points snapping a sixsession winning streak on thursday us initial jobless claims dropped by 8000 from the prior period to 198000 in the week ending december 25 however analysts were expecting a reading of 208000 futures for the dow jones industrial average dropped 25 points to 3626600 while the standard  poor’s 500 index futures declined 4 points to 476825 futures for the nasdaq index fell 13 points to 1641725 the us has the highest number of covid19 cases and deaths in the world with total infections in the country exceeding 55252820 with around 845740 deaths india reported a total of at least 34838800 confirmed cases while brazil confirmed over 22277230 cases oil prices traded lower as brent crude futures fell 06 to trade at 7909 per barrel while us wti crude futures fell 06 to trade at 7655 a barrel the baker hughes north american rig count report for the latest week will be released at 100 pm et european markets were slightly lower today the stoxx europe 600 index slipped 01 the french cac 40 index fell 03 while london’s ftse 100 slipped 04 asian markets traded mostly higher today hong kong’s hang seng index rose 12 and china’s shanghai composite gained 06 australia’s spasx 200 fell 09 while india’s bse sensex rose 09 the official nbs manufacturing pmi for china increased to 503 in december from 501 in the earlier month while nonmanufacturing pmi edged higher to 527 from 523 check out other major ratings here   lexicon pharmaceuticals nasdaq lxrx said it submitted a new drug application to the fda for sotagliflozin for the treatment of heart failure in adults with type 2 diabetes   the cruise lines international association clia on thursday called out the us centers for disease control and prevention for what it suggested was the singling out of the cruise industry with a new travel advisory over covid19 fears due to the fastspreading omicron coronavirus variant   xeris biopharma holdings inc nasdaq xers reported the fda approval of recorlev for the treatment of endogenous hypercortisolemia in adult patients with cushings syndrome check out other breaking news here