Wall Street poised to open with gains after last week's jobs numbers triggered investor sell-off

Chicago Tribune

7 hours ago

Wall Street was on track to open with gains on Monday following Friday's sell-off that was triggered by fears of a slowing economy after the government released some grim data on U.S. job growth.
Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both rose 0.5% before the bell. Nasdaq futures climbed 0.7%.
After a jam-packed calendar of economic indicators last week, there are far fewer newsworthy releases this week. However, earnings season is still in high gear, with big names companies such as The Walt Disney Co., McDonald's and Caterpillar all reporting in the coming days.
Boeing shares were largely unchanged early Monday after workers who build fighter jets for the troubled aerospace giant went on strike overnight.
About 3,200 workers at Boeing facilities in the Midwest voted to reject a modified four-year labor agreement with company, their union said. The vote followed members' rejection last week of an earlier proposal from the troubled aerospace giant which had included a 20% wage increase over four years.
On Friday, investors' worries about a weakening U.S. economy deepened after the latest report on job growth in the U.S. showed employers added just 73,000 jobs in July. That's sharply lower than economists expected. The Labor Department also reported that revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls.
'The labor market, once a pillar of resilience, is now looking more like a late-cycle casualty, as soft data begin to replace soft landings in market discourse,' Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Trump's decision to order the immediate firing of the head of the government agency that produces the monthly jobs figures raised concern over whether there might be interference in future data.
The surprisingly weak hiring numbers led investors to step up their expectations the Fed will cut interest rates in September for the first time since the fall of last year. A cut in rates would give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also risk fueling inflation, which is hovering stubbornly above the central bank's 2% target.
Compounding investors' anxiety is Trump's tariff policy. Though some deals have been made, Trump announced late last week sweeping tariffs on imports from many U.S. trading partners, set to take effect on Thursday.
Companies have been warning investors that unpredictable policies, with some tariffs already in effect while others change or get extended, make it difficult to plan ahead. Walmart, Procter & Gamble and many others also have warned about import taxes raising costs, eating into profits and raising prices for consumers.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, France's CAC 40 added 0.8%, while the German DAX rose 1.2%. Britain's FTSE 100 edged up 0.3%.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index lost 1.3%, bouncing back from bigger losses earlier in the day to finish at 40,290.70.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong jumped 0.9% to 24,733.45, while the Shanghai Composite index climbed nearly 0.7% to 3,583.31.
In South Korea, the Kospi surged 0.9% to 3,147.75.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was nearly unchanged at 8,663.70.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed $1.20 to $66.13 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell $1.12 to $68.55 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 147.51 Japanese yen from 147.26 yen. The euro weakened to $1.1557 from $1.1598.