Futures tied to the benchmark stock index dipped 0.15 per cent, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were lower by 0.15 per cent and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.25 per cent
S&P 500 futures were slightly lower Thursday night as investors looked ahead to the November jobs report.
Futures tied to the benchmark stock index dipped 0.15 per cent. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures were lower by 0.15 per cent and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.25 per cent.
Shares of tech companies were on the move in after-hours trading following quarterly results. Asana, Zscaler and Marvell all slipped.
In regular trading, the Dow closed lower by nearly 195 points, while the S&P 500 inched down 0.09 per cent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 0.13 per cent.
Those moves followed a mixed batch of economic data, including a core personal consumption expenditures report that was slightly better than expected on a monthly basis and a bigger-than-expected decline in the ISM Manufacturing Index. The so-called PCE deflator is one of the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauges.
Taken together, these two pieces of data may be suggestive of a soft landing for the US economy as long as growth does not slip much further, Goldman Sachs’ Chris Hussey said in a note on Thursday.
Investors are focused on the Labor Department’s report on non-farm payrolls, the unemployment rate and hourly wages, due at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday. Economists expect the economy to have added 200,000 jobs in November, according to Dow Jones. That would be a decrease from the 261,000 it added in October.
Friday’s is the final monthly employment report before the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting on Dec. 13 and 14, in which the central bank is expected to raise its fed funds target rate by a half percentage point.