US stock futures largely unchanged ahead of key nonfarm payrolls release

US stock index futures traded largely unchanged Friday as investors hunkered down before the release of key nonfarm payrolls data for November.

At 05:45 ET (10:45 GMT), Dow Jones Futures rose 16 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 Futures fell 2 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 Futures fell 2 points, or 0.1%. 

Wall Street indexes fell on Thursday, hit by profit-taking after clocking a series of record highs this week. 

The S&P 500 fell 0.2%, the NASDAQ Composite dropped 0.2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.6%, with all three indexes falling from record highs.

Week to date, the broad-based S&P 500 is up 0.7%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained 2.5%, while the DJIA is down marginally.  Nonfarm payrolls in spotlight 

The day’s key focus will be on the nonfarm payrolls release, with investors looking for clues to the health of the US labor market after Fed Chair Jerome Powell stated earlier in the week that the largest economy in the world was strong enough for the central bank to move carefully on rate cuts.

The reading is expected to show the labor market recovered sharply from weather-related disruptions in October, with payrolls growth forecast at 202,000, compared to 12,000 in the prior month.

Markets have largely maintained their bets on a 25 basis point rate cut by the Fed later in December. But doubts have emerged about future easing, especially as investors also looked to inflationary policies under President-elect Donald Trump.

Higher-than-expected jobless claims data also did little to quell speculation that the labor market recovered sharply in November, with any resilience in jobs heralding a slower pace of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.  Corporate earnings continue 

On the corporate side, the likes of Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA ), Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU ), Gitlab (NASDAQ:GTLB ) and DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU ) will be in the spotlight after the companies all released well received results after the close on Thursday.

Elsewhere, Boeing (NYSE:BA ) stock slipped lower premarket after a US judge on Thursday rejected the aircraft manufacturer's agreement to plead guilty to fraud in the wake of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, faulting a diversity and inclusion provision in the deal. Brent on course for weekly gain 

Oil prices slipped lower Friday, with the global benchmark Brent on course for substantial weekly losses on concerns of slowing demand after OPEC+ extended its current run of supply cuts until well into 2025.

By 05:45 ET, the US crude futures (WTI) dropped 0.7% to $67.84 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 0.7% to $71.58 a barrel.

For the week, Brent was on track to drop around 1.5%, while WTI hung on to marginal gains.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+,  delayed the start of its oil output increases by three months until April and extended the full unwinding of cuts by a year until the end of 2026.

(Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)

 

Source: Investing.com