© Reuters
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening largely unchanged Friday ahead of the release of the key monthly jobs report, which could influence the size of future Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
At 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up just 5 points, or less than 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded 1 point lower, and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 22 points, or 0.2%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closed higher Thursday, up 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively, breaking a four-day losing streak. The Nasdaq Composite, by contrast, fell 0.3%, its fifth consecutive down day and its longest losing streak since February.
Still, all three major averages are set to end the week lower, the third in a row, as investors continue to worry about further hefty interest rate hikes and the likely impact on future economic growth.
Federal Reserve policymakers next meet in late September, and today’s jobs report will be one of the key data releases they can study as they try to decide how much further to take rates higher while trying to tame inflation.
Economists expect the economy added 300,000 positions last month, down from July's number but still a solid gain amid a tight labor market. The unemployment rate is expected to be 3.5%, the same as the prior month, while average hourly earnings are expected to rise to 5.3%, from 5.2% in July.
The data are due at 08:30 ET (12:30 GMT).
In corporate news, Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) stock rose 9.5% premarket after the athletic apparel retailer raised its annual profit and revenue forecasts on robust demand from higher-income customers.
Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) stock rose 1.7% premarket with the semiconductor company expecting resilient demand from businesses going digital, while PagerDuty (NYSE:PD) stock rose over 8% premarket after the software company reported strong quarterly results.
Oil prices bounced Friday, but were still on course for substantial losses this week on concerns that China’s COVID-19 restrictions and slowing global growth will hit demand.
The Group of Seven finance ministers are expected to firm up plans on Friday to impose a price cap on Russian oil, a proposal that appears to have a number of practical difficulties given the global competition for fuel supplies.
The Kremlin has warned that it will refuse to ship oil to any country that falls in with these plans.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a group known as OPEC+, are due to get together at the start of next week, and traders will be looking to see the output levels agreed given top producer Saudi Arabia floated the idea of cuts earlier this week.
By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 2.2% higher at $88.52 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 2% to $94.23. Both benchmark contracts slid 3% in the previous session to two-week lows, and are on track to fall about 5% for the week.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.4% to $1,716.45/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.4% higher at 0.9981.
