U.S. stock futures rose Friday ahead of the key jobs report, as traders gave a mixed reception to results from Amazon.com and Apple.
What’s driving markets
-
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.18%
rose 103 points, or 0.3%, to 35415. -
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.37%
gained 24 points, or 0.5%, to 4546. -
Nasdaq 100 futures
NQ00,
+0.51%
increased 114 points, or 0.7%, to 15553.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
fell 67 points, or 0.19%, to 35216, the S&P 500
SPX
declined 12 points, or 0.25%, to 4502, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
dropped 14 points, or 0.1%, to 13960.
The S&P and Nasdaq both have declined for three straight trading days.
What’s driving markets
Friday should be an eventful session, as investors parse a host of earnings results including from Apple and Amazon.com, as well as the latest jobs data.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal expect the Labor Department to report, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, that 200,000 jobs were created in July.
“From the Fed’s perspective, the labor market remains too hot for comfort, but there are signs that it has begun to move in the right direction,” said Nicholas Van Ness, U.S. economist at Credit Agricole, which forecasts a 190,000 rise.
A report in line with expectations would leave the Fed comfortable with staying on hold in September, but a strong upside surprise would raise the risk of another hike, he said.
Amazon shares
AMZN,
were shooting higher after the online retailer and cloud provider reported earnings far ahead of consensus.
“Not only did we get a trifecta beat — retail revenue, AWS revenue and margins — but also the tone from management on the call was that there is more to come on retail margins and AWS acceleration,” said Lloyd Walmsley, an analyst at UBS who lifted his price target to $175 from $150.
Apple’s stock
AAPL,
was about 1% weaker in premarket trade as the tech giant reported slightly better-than-expected earnings on in-line sales.
“Apple’s latest quarter and guidance were not materially different from the outcomes investors have been used to seeing in the latest quarters as the company managed to eke out modest revenue growth on a constant currency basis in the [fiscal third quarter] as well, leveraging its broad portfolio of hardware and services despite an uneven macro on a geographic basis as well as uneven demand relative to the different offerings across hardware products and services alike,” said Samik Chatterjee, an analyst at JPMorgan.
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