U.S. stock futures wobbled on Friday as investors digested the year’s final monthly jobs report, a crucial test for the prospects for rate cuts in December and beyond.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) fell 0.1%, while those on the S&P 500 (ES=F) lost about the same after the gauges strayed from all-time highs late Thursday . Meanwhile, contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were largely flat.
The US economy added 227,000 jobs in November, slightly more than expected, as the labor market recovered from October data, which were negatively affected by the severe weather and labor strikes. The unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 4.2%. Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer has all the details here.
The report was largely in line with hopes for a “Goldilocks” — strong enough to dampen worries about the economy, but soft enough to keep the Fed’s options open to cut rates this month and next year.
On Friday, markets had priced in about a 70% chance that the Fed would cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point on December 18, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, which is roughly the same as before the report.
Meanwhile, the rally in bitcoin (BTC-USD) continued to decline, with the cryptocurrency falling to around $98,000. Options show some investors are hedging against a deeper pullback following the leading token’s record-breaking rise to over $100,000 for the first time. The rally was fueled by hopes of support for digital currencies from newly elected President Donald Trump, who on Thursday named former PayPal (PYPL) COO David Sacks as his “White House AI & Crypto Czar.”
On the corporate front, shares of Lululemon (LULU) and Ulta Beauty (ULTA) rose in premarket trading after the retailers both raised their earnings forecasts.
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