S&P 500 futures fell slightly Thursday night as investors looked forward to the November jobs report.
Futures contracts linked to the benchmark stock index fell 0.15%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.15% and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.25%.
Technology stocks were on the move in after-hours trading after the quarterly results. Asana, Zscaler, and Marvell all fell behind.
In regular trading, the Dow Jones closed down about 195 points, while the S&P was down 0.09%. The Nasdaq Composite Heavy Index rose 0.13%.
Those moves came on the heels of a disparate set of economic data, including a Basic personal consumption expenditure report It was slightly better than expected on a monthly basis and a larger than expected decline in the ISM Manufacturing Index. The so-called PCE deflator is one of the Fed’s favorite measures of inflation.
“Taken together, these two pieces of data could suggest a soft landing for the US economy as long as growth doesn’t slip much further,” Goldman Sachs’ Chris Hussey said in a note Thursday.
Investors focus on the Labor Department’s report on the nonfarm 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 down from the 261,000 it added in October.
Friday’s report is the final monthly employment report before the Fed’s two-day meeting on Dec. 13-14, at which the central bank is expected to raise the federal funds target rate by half a percentage point.
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