(Reuters) – Futures linked to Wall Street’s main indexes were subdued on Friday as investors avoided large bets prior to the crucial January jobs report, while Amazon.com’s shares were pressured by low forecasts and weakness in its cloud computing unit.
U.S. job growth likely slowed last month, partly restrained by the California wildfires and cold weather in parts of the country, with estimates of a reading of 170,000 jobs added, according to economists polled by Reuters.
The payrolls number from April to December is also likely to be revised to reflect new information and seasonal factors.
“Today’s data is not expected to show the kind of slowdown that would force the Fed’s hand,” Max McKechnie, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management said in a mailed statement.
“While payrolls are forecast to moderate after January’s bumper print, the anticipated 170 thousand jobs are still more than enough to keep the Fed on hold for now,” he said.
Traders do not expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to make a move on interest rates in its next meeting in March, but a cut is widely anticipated in June, according to the CME’s FedWatch Tool.
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan signaled overnight that she was ready to keep interest rates on hold for “quite some time” even if inflation drops closer to the Fed’s 2% goal, as long as the labor market does not falter.
Meanwhile, Amazon.com dipped 3% in premarket trading due to weakness in the retailer’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, and lower-than-expected forecasts for first-quarter revenue and profit.
At 04:30 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were mostly unchanged, S&P 500 E-minis were down 5.5 points, or 0.09%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 27.75 points, or 0.13%.
Markets saw a dismal start to the week when U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping trade tariffs over the weekend, but suspended the levies on goods from Mexico and Canada on Monday for a month.
Since then, a host of strong earnings and optimism about a potential China-U.S. trade deal despite Beijing’s tit-for-tat tariffs have set all three major indexes on track for weekly advances, with the Dow on pace for its fourth straight weekly rise.
Of the 292 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, more than 76% beat analysts’ expectations, according to data compiled by LSEG.
A preliminary reading of U.S. consumer sentiment for February is due shortly after markets open.
Among other early movers, Pinterest jumped 20.3% after the image-sharing platform forecast first-quarter revenue above market estimates.
Elf Beauty tumbled 26.3% after the cosmetics company cut its annual net sales and profit forecasts.
Expedia added 9.1% after the online travel platform posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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