By Daniel Shvartsman
Investing.com – Dow futures traded lower Friday morning, as investors await the latest jobs number and mulled the latest major company layoffs warning.
At 07:00 am ET (1100 GMT), Dow futures were down 131 points or 0.4%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.55% to 4154, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.9%. This comes off a major rally day on Thursday, with each of the major indices up more than 1.3%.
The big story to watch is the latest jobs report, which comes out at 08:30 am ET (1230 GMT). The U.S. economy is expected to add 325K jobs, a drop from the prior month but a still formidable number. With the Fed still locked on a plan for continued 50 basis points hikes, it's hard to imagine what in the jobs report might change that trajectory, and as yet clear how markets will react.
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk made big corporate level news, as reports came out of his internal email to Tesla executives calling for cuts of about 10% due to a ‘super bad’ feeling about the economy. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) traded 4% lower in the pre-market session. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) also moved lower, down 1.9% in pre-market trading, amidst reports that app store growth could be a headwind for the current quarter. Memory semiconductor manufacturer Micron (NASDAQ:MU) was down 3.5% after receiving a downgrade from Piper Sandler.
Gainers in early trading included Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA), which traded up as much as 17% after a beat-across-the-board earnings report, and Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU), which also had a strong earnings report.
In addition to the jobs report, purchasing manager index (PMI) numbers come out at 10:00 am ET. Expectations are for continued economic expansion, though at a slower rate than prior months; European PMIs matched this pattern in their releases earlier this morning.
As of 07:15 am ET, crude oil was trading slightly lower, with Crude Oil WTI Futures down 0.7% and Brent oil down 0.7% as well. The announcement of an OPEC+ production increase has yet to significantly offset the various demand and supply pressures in the energy sector.
At the same time, Bitcoin dipped back below $30,000, and was down 1.15% for the last 24 hours. This comes after a brief risk-on rally and as news of layoffs and hiring freezes pervade the crypto industry.
Gold was just barely down, trading at $1870/oz, while the EUR/USD was also barely down, at $1.074.