With a long weekend in North America approaching, US markets have been trying to stabilize. Yesterday the Dow and the S&P snapped losing streaks with gains of 0.5% and 0.3% respectively. The NASDAQ, however, fell another 0.2% and the small cap Russell 2000 index lost 1.1%. Asia Pacific trading was pretty quiet overnight with major indices down marginally. European markets, meanwhile, have been bouncing back this morning with the Dax up 1.4% and the FTSE up 0.8%.
This morning, US index futures have been climbing, and are currently up 0.6% to 0.8% on the back of slightly better than expected US employment numbers. Nonfarm payrolls beat expectations (315K vs street 300K and previous 528K)). Average hourly earnings (5.2% vs street 5.3% and previous 5.2% indicate wage inflation appears to be stabilizing for now. US factory orders are due at 10:00 am EDT (street 0.2%).
In corporate news, lululemon is up 9.3% premarket after the athletic clothing producer beat expectations on earnings ($2.20 vs street $1.87) plus same store sales (23% vs street 18%) and raised its sales guidance.
Commodity action is mixed this morning. WTI Crude oil is up 1.9% but still below $90.00/bbl ahead of next week’s OPEC+ meeting. Natural gas is sitting on $9.00/mmbtu down 2.7% as investors await news on whether the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will restart sometime this weekend from a maintenance shutdown and at what level. Copper is down 0.5%.
