By Daniel Shvartsman
Investing.com – Dow futures traded lower Friday morning, as investors reacted to a strong jobs number and mulled the latest major company layoffs warning.
At 08:55 am ET (1255 GMT), Dow futures were down 235 points or 0.7%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.95% to 4137, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1.5%. This comes off a major rally day on Thursday, with each of the major indices up more than 1.3%.
The big story to watch was the latest jobs report, which saw the U.S. economy add 390,000 jobs, ahead of expectations for 325K jobs. With the Fed still locked on a plan for continued 50 basis points hikes, the market's initial reaction has been to sell off as it braces for tighter monetary conditions.
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk made big corporate level news, as reports came out of his internal email to Tesla executives calling for cuts of about 10% due to a ‘super bad’ feeling about the economy. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) traded 4% lower in the pre-market session. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) also moved lower, down 1.9% in pre-market trading, amidst reports that app store growth could be a headwind for the current quarter. Memory semiconductor manufacturer Micron (NASDAQ:MU) was down 3.5% after receiving a downgrade from Piper Sandler.
Gainers in early trading included Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA), which traded up as much as 17% after a beat-across-the-board earnings report, and Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU), which also had a strong earnings report.
In addition to the jobs report, purchasing manager index (PMI) numbers come out at 10:00 am ET. Expectations are for continued economic expansion, though at a slower rate than prior months; European PMIs matched this pattern in their releases earlier this morning.
As of 07:15 am ET, crude oil was trading slightly lower, with Crude Oil WTI Futures down 0.7% and Brent oil down 0.7% as well. The announcement of an OPEC+ production increase has yet to significantly offset the various demand and supply pressures in the energy sector.
At the same time, Bitcoin dipped back below $30,000, and was down 1.15% for the last 24 hours. This comes after a brief risk-on rally and as news of layoffs and hiring freezes pervade the crypto industry.
Gold was just barely down, trading at $1870/oz, while the EUR/USD was also barely down, at $1.074.
(This piece was originally published at 7:20am and updated at 8:56am ET)