U.S. stock index futures were largely flat early Thursday as traders waited for weekly jobless claims and a delayed report on job openings, and weighed Alphabet's new AI spending plan ahead of Amazon's results later in the day. By 5:16 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis, futures contracts tied to the index, were down 36 points, or 0.07%, while S&P 500 E-minis were up 9 points, or 0.13%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 78.25 points, or 0.31%. Alphabet fell 2.4% in premarket trading after laying out capital expenditure plans that could nearly double this year, while Qualcomm slid 10.4% and Arm dropped 7%; chip names such as Broadcom rose, and “unforgiving scrutiny over AI capex continues to spook investors,” said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com.