Wall Street opens muted with jobs data in focus

By Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal

(Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a muted open on Thursday following record highs for all three main indexes in the previous session, as investors awaited upcoming employment data later this week.

The S&P 500 , the Nasdaq and the blue-chip Dow clocked record closing highs on Wednesday as technology shares rallied after upbeat results from companies including Salesforce (NYSE:CRM ) and Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL ) Technology.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appeared to signal support for a slower pace of interest-rate cuts ahead when he spoke on Wednesday, saying the economy was stronger at this point than the central bank had expected in September. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said there was "no sense of urgency" on reducing borrowing costs further.

Comments from Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin are due later in the day.

On the day, data showed the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits increased moderately last week, suggesting that the labor market continued to cool.

Focus will now shift to the crucial monthly jobs report, which is scheduled for release on Friday.

"Sentiment is obviously a little restrained. The question remains if the Fed is going to be able to follow through with a series of rate cuts given that we've seen a bounce in inflation and hiring data, et cetera, all improving to a certain extent," said Michael Green, portfolio manager and chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management.

At 8:44 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 55 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 3.25 points, or 0.05% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 14.75 points, or 0.07%.

Cryptocurrency- and blockchain-related stocks jumped in premarket trading after bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, stormed above the $100,000 mark for the first time.

Exchange operator Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN ) rose 5.1%, miner MARA Holdings added 5.2% and MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, advanced 8.8%.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV ) gained 2.8% as the carrier raised its forecast for fourth-quarter revenue per available seat miles, while American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL ) added 7.7% after lifting its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings forecast.



SentinelOne (NYSE:S ) dropped 12.6% after the cybersecurity firm missed Wall Street estimates for third-quarter profit.

Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS ) fell 7.3% after the chip design software firm forecast fiscal 2025 revenue below Wall Street expectations, in part due to a slump in China sales.

Source: Investing.com