By Riva Gold

U.S. stock futures were little changed Wednesday, even as rising oil prices and a stabilization in bank shares spurred gains in Europe.

Futures pointed to a less than 0.1% opening gain for the S&P 500, with investors looking ahead to speeches from several Federal Reserve officials later in the day.

Stock futures got a tiny boost after data showed U.S. factories posted flat orders of big-ticket goods in August. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 1.5% drop in overall orders.

In corporate news, shares of Nike fell 2.7% in premarket trading after the sportswear maker signaled slowing future demand for its sneakers and apparel.

Earlier, shares in Japan declined 1.3%, weighed by concerns around the price of oil and the impact of negative interest rates on the country's banks.

Brent crude oil recovered after Asian markets closed and was last up 1.3% at $47.13 a barrel after falling sharply in the previous session.

Prices had declined when Saudi Arabia said it sees no chance of an output cap at a meeting of oil producers in Algiers concluding later Wednesday.

"OPEC countries are not necessarily united in terms of what they'd like to go for," making a production freeze unlikely, said Markus Stadlmann, chief investment officer at Lloyds Private Bank.

Still, market participants appeared to take heart in the prospect of a more definitive plan to curb production in November, after Saudi Arabia offered to trim production by 500,000 barrels a day.

Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.9% as the region's banking sector showed signs of a nascent recovery from a rough start to the week.

Shares of Deutsche Bank gained 3% after Chief Executive John Cryan said the bank never asked the German government to financially assist in a dispute with the U.S. Department of Justice. The lender also said Wednesday that it had sold its Abbey Life insurance unit to Phoenix Group Holdings for $1.22 billion, helping boost its capital position.

Despite the day's gains, Deutsche Bank shares are still down about 5% so far this week, having touched their lowest price in decades.

Investors are watching the health of the European banking sector closely, with the Euro Stoxx Banks index down about 28% so far this year. Recent falls in bank shares are particularly worrisome in Europe, where banks constitute a significant share of direct lending into the economy, said Jamie Cox, managing director at Harris Financial Group.

"It's a very ugly situation," he said. On top of the potential fines, "interest rates globally are low and it doesn't appear there are prospects of them going up anytime soon -- when you're a financial institution and you live off the spread, it's difficult."

Investors largely expect the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan to ease policy further in the coming months. Meanwhile, the Bank of England will likely have to provide further stimulus to the U.K. economy to limit an economic slowdown caused by voters' decision to leave the European Union, Bank of England Deputy Governor Minouche Shafik said Wednesday.

"It seems likely to me that further monetary stimulus will be required at some point in order to help ensure that a slowdown in economic activity doesn't turn into something more pernicious," she said.

Investors may get more detail on the course of monetary policy later Wednesday in comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen.

Ms. Yellen is set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee about financial regulation.

Fed-fund futures, used by investors to bet on Federal Reserve policy, suggested a roughly 56% chance of higher interest rates by December, compared with a less than 48% chance on Tuesday, according to data from CME Group.

In bond markets, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose slightly to 1.565% from 1.556% on Tuesday after eight consecutive sessions of declines, its longest losing streak since the middle of June. German bund yields were little changed at minus 0.136%.

The WSJ Dollar Index was flat, with the euro up 0.2% against the dollar at $1.1235, and the dollar up 0.3% against the yen at Yen100.5600.

Jenny Hsu and Paul Hannon contributed to this article.

Write to Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 28, 2016 09:05 ET (13:05 GMT)

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