Investing.com – U.S. futures pointed to a higher opening bell on Friday as investors look ahead to the nonfarm payrolls data later in the day.
The S&P 500 futures rose seven points or 0.28% as of 6:43 AM ET (11:43 GMT) while Dow futures increased 80 points or 0.32%. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures was up over 24 points or 0.37%.
Investors are expecting strong jobs data from the U.S. Labor Department, which will release its December nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT) on Friday. The consensus forecast is that the data will show jobs growth of 190,000, following an increase of 228,000 in November; the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 4.1%, while average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.3% after an increase of 0.2% a month earlier.
Automobile maker Fiat was among the top performers in pre-market trading, rising 2.86%. Meanwhile networking hardware firm Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) increased 1.95% while General Electric (NYSE:GE) was up 1.24% and software firm NQ Mobile Inc (NYSE:NQ) gained 5.65%.
Elsewhere Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:SMI) was down 3.01% while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) slipped 0.32% and financial institution HSBC Holdings (LON:HSBA) PLC ADR (NYSE:HSBC) decreased 0.54% and banking firm Deutsche Bank AG (DE:DBKGn) NA O.N. (NYSE:DB) slumped 1.54%.
In Europe stocks were up. Germany’s DAX rose 142 points or 1.08% while in France the CAC 40 increased 44 points or 0.83% and in London, the FTSE 100 inched forward 24 points or 0.32%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 was up 32 points or 0.92% while Spain’s IBEX 35 gained 47 points or 0.46%.
In commodities, gold futures were down 0.25% to $1,318.30 a troy ounce while crude oil futures fell 0.90% to $61.45 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rallied 0.17% to 91.76.