US futures are holding slightly higher ahead of the US non-farm payrolls release
Wall Street stocks finished higher overnight to notch fresh all-time highs amid fresh economic data. Initial jobless benefit claims dropped by 14,000 to 340,000 last week while the trade deficit fell 4.3% in July. Furthermore, U.S. exports reached their highest level since 2019. As such, the benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.28%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.37%, and the Nasdaq advanced 0.14%.
Asian equities were mixed on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rallying 2.05% after Prime Minister Yoshihide said he won’t run for the party leadership post. As a reminder, Suga was criticized for handling the covid crisis, so the resignation announcement boosted domestic stocks. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Composite in China fell 0.43%, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong declined 0.72% and the Kospi in Seoul advanced 0.79%.
In Europe, stocks opened flat ahead of the US non-farm payrolls release later in the day. US futures are holding slightly higher in early pre-market trading. On the data front, Eurozone retail sales fell 2.3% in July, while in June it rose by an upwardly revised 1.8%. On an annual basis, the volume of retail sales was up 3.1% versus 5.0% expected. In the UK, the seasonally adjusted IHS Markit/CIPS services PMI was revised lower to 55.0 in August versus 55.5.
In currencies, the dollar is little changed so far on the day as traders await the employment report. A gain in jobs of significantly less than 500,000 will put the timing of Fed tapering in question and thus put the greenback under more severe selling pressure ahead of the weekend. In this scenario, EURUSD would regain the 1.1900 figure for the first time in a month.
