Futures Are Lower Ahead Of The Jobs Report
Futures are lower, but little changed, ahead of the December Jobs Report, set for release at 8:30 am ET.
At around 6:40 am ET, Dow futures were down 43 points, S&P 500 futures were down 4 points, and Nasdaq futures were down about 5 points.
The Jobs Report comes after stocks staged back-to-back rallies on Wednesday and Thursday that brought stocks back into positive territory for the year after starting the 2015 with three straight losing days.
From our big preview of the Jobs Report, here's what Wall Street is looking for:
- Nonfarm payrolls: +240,000
- Unemployment rate: 5.7%
- Average hourly earnings, month-on-month: +0.2%
- Average hourly earnings, year-on-year: +2.2%
- Average hours worked: 34.6
The price of oil is little changed early Friday, with West Texas Intermediate crude trading at around $48.70 a barrel. Gold is also little changed, trading near $1,210 an ounce.
The euro was weakening slightly against the dollar, trading near 1.181 to the dollar, while the dollar was losing some ground against both the British pound and the Japanese yen.
In Europe, stocks were slightly lower across the board after huge gains on Thursday.