Live news: Insurance stocks jump as Milton moves away from Florida

Events to look out for on Thursday include the US inflation reading, jobless claims data, updates on the impact of Hurricane Milton and quarterly results from Delta Air Lines:

Inflation: Price pressures in the US are forecast to have eased in September, with that month’s annual rate of inflation projected to be 2.3 per cent, from 2.5 per cent in August. Annual growth in “core” CPI, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, is expected to remain at 3.2 per cent.

Initial jobless claims: New applications for unemployment aid are expected to have ticked up to 230,000 in the week ending October 5, from 225,000 the week before.

Hurricane Milton: Officials will begin surveying the damage wreaked by the storm, which made landfall near Siesta Key in Sarasota County on Wednesday night. The National Hurricane Center earlier in the day warned that a “life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, and flooding rains” were expected “across portions of central and south-western Florida”.

Delta Air Lines: Investors will be keen to understand the impact on the Atlanta-based airline of July’s global IT outage, which led to thousands of flight cancellations. The company is expected to post third-quarter revenues of $14.7bn before the opening bell, a less than 1 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.