US pre-open: Futures trade higher ahead of non-farm payrolls
Wall Street futures had stocks opening higher ahead of the bell on Friday as market participants awaited some key jobs data.
As of 1240 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.44%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.33% and 0.31% firmer, respectively.
The Dow closed 85.73 points higher on Thursday as this week's jobless claims report from the Department of Labor came in at a Covid-era low of 712,000.
The jobs market will again be in focus, with traders looking ahead to this week's non-farm payrolls report at 1330 GMT, with the rate of job gains expected have slowed in November as a result of a record spike in new cases of Covid-19 and fresh lockdown measures associated with it.
The unemployment rate was also forecast to drop to 6.7% from 6.9%.
SpreadEx's Connor Campbell said: "Failing to close above 30,000 yesterday evening, the Dow Jones is ready to have another go this Friday, with the futures putting the index at 30,050 – essentially its all-time highs.
"How it actually fares may be dependent on the state of the non-farm figures from November. After months of retreat from that 4.8m peak seen in June, this Friday's reading is expected to come in at half a million on the nose. Again, pre-pandemic that would be a mind-blowing number; now it'd be a seven-month low."
Stimulus talks were drawing an amount of attention yet again, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking on the phone yesterday for the first time since the presidential election.
On the macro front, non-farm payrolls data for November and last month's unemployment rate will be published at 1330 GMT, while October's factory orders report will follow at 1500 GMT.
No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Friday.