U.S. stocks were poised to open higher Friday, although the mood on Wall Street could change once the government releases its monthly jobs report.
At 7 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq 100 and Standard & Poor’s 500 futures were up.
Futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Futures appeared to get a lift from the wave of optimism that swept markets in the previous session. Wall Street staged a late-session rally Thursday after three straight days of losses.
Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners, said that Friday’s volume will be light ahead of the Labor Day weekend — and that trading will be all about the monthly employment report, scheduled before the bell.
Economy: All eyes are on the August report from the Labor Department, which is due out at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Employers are expected to have cut 225,000 jobs from their payrolls last month, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com. The unemployment rate is expected to have risen to 9.5% from 9.4% in July.
Cardillo, who estimates 205,000 job cuts, said that if the report is «within consensus,» the markets «will just drift ahead of a long weekend.»
«Anything under 200,000 could see the market enjoy a nice rally before the weekend,» said Cardillo. But he added that any figure much higher than consensus could trigger a «nasty decline.»
World markets: Stocks around the world were mostly upbeat ahead of the jobs report. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added nearly 3%, although Japan’s Nikkei posted modest losses. Major European markets were higher in morning trading.
Money and oil: The dollar slipped versus the euro and the British pound but edged up against the yen.
The price of oil rose 41 cents a barrel to $68.37.
Source: money.cnn.com.
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