LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Wall Street was set for slight gains at the end of the week after the White House announced that National Economic Council director Gary Cohn would not be stepping down.
The announcement followed resignations over the previous sessions of multiple top executives from the various councils and forums set-up by President Trump to tackle some of the key policy issues facing the country.

On Thursday, rumours abounded that Cohn might be set to follow suit, sending stocks on Wall Street into a tailspin.

As of 1343 BST, the Dow Jones Industrials was being called to start the session higher by 13 points at 21,746, alongside a rise of 3.25 points for the S & P 500 and 23.75 point gain on the Nasdaq 100 to 5,824.

Commenting on the market backdrop, Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: "We're seeing risk aversion in the markets again on Friday, with the possibility of a self-inflicted crisis within Donald Trump's White House and another terror attack, this time in Barcelona, weighing on risk appetite.

"Trump has been no stranger to controversy in his short time as President but the latest entirely unnecessary and avoidable situation could prove quite costly for him. Trump has already this week been forced to dissolve his manufacturing council and the strategic and policy forum, while his infrastructure council never even got off the ground, after numerous CEO's withdrew from the initiatives due to his response to the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend."

To take note of, on Thursday evening Dallas Fed boss Robert Kaplan told an audience in Texas he would like to see more progress on inflation "before I consider another rate increase".

"I'm being patient in terms of another rate increase," he reportedly said.

In other remarks from prominent Fed officials, speaking on the same day, Mineapolis Fed chief Neel Kashkari said than when deciding when to start unwinding its bond portfolio, the US central bank would take into consideration the state of negotiatios on raising the federal government's debt ceiling.

On the economic calendar for Friday, the University of Michigan was scheduled to release a preliminary reading for its consumer confidence index in August. The Fed's Kaplan was also set to deliver another speech, followed by a question and answer session, at 1900 BST.

Stock in Deere&Co. lost ground after the manufacturer of construction and farming equipment posted third quarter earnings per share of $1.55, falling woefully short of the $1.93 that analysts had penciled in. At $7.81bn, top line growth also fell short of the Street's expectations.

Sportswear-maker Footlocker shares were sharply lower after delivering weaker-than-expected quarterly EPS of 62 cents (consensus: 90 cents).

Calpine rocketed after the Journal reported that Energy Capital Partners was closing in on a $17bn deal to acquire the power company.

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