Nasdaq futures experienced a modest increase on Friday in anticipation of the December U.S. jobs report and a potential Supreme Court decision regarding President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as major equity indexes appear set to record substantial weekly gains. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indicated increases of 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively, whereas those linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained relatively unchanged. Yesterday, major stock indexes exhibited a mixed performance, as the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced an increase, whereas the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined, influenced by data-storage shares. Meanwhile, the benchmark S&P 500 concluded the day virtually unchanged. Nonetheless, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 concluded Friday with respective weekly gains of 1.8%, 1.1%, and 0.9%.
On Friday, attention will turn to the monthly jobs report, anticipated to reveal that the U.S. economy added 73,000 jobs in December, with the unemployment rate declining to 4.5% from 4.6% in the previous month. The job growth is expected to exceed the 64,000 jobs added in November, a month when the unemployment rate reached its highest level since 2021. Prior to the report, the 10-year Treasury yield, a key determinant of interest rates across various commercial and consumer loans, increased to 4.19% from Thursday’s closing figure of just under 4.18%.
Market participants will closely monitor developments regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of Trump’s invocation of emergency powers to implement tariffs. It may support the “Liberation Day” levies declared in April or potentially classify them as illegal and retract them. A ruling may provide much-needed clarity to trade policy that has remained ambiguous for almost a year—initially surprising markets that have since rebounded. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, experienced an increase of 0.5%, reaching approximately $58 per barrel in recent trading. Meanwhile, gold futures saw a rise of 0.4%, climbing to $4,480 per ounce. Bitcoin was trading around 90,400, down slightly from an overnight high of about 91,500. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the value of the greenback relative to a selection of foreign currencies, registered an increase of 0.1%, reaching 99.04.
In corporate developments, General Motors experienced a 2% decline in premarket trading following the announcement of a $6 billion charge related to its electric vehicle business. Meanwhile, U.S.-listed shares of mining giant Rio Tinto fell by 3.5% amid reports of renewed merger discussions with Glencore, whose shares surged by 10% in London trading. Data-storage firms Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings, which ranked among the poorest performers in the S&P 500 on Thursday, were experiencing a rebound of approximately 1% each prior to the market opening. Shares of the Magnificent Seven tech giants, including Nvidia, Google parent Alphabet, and Apple, experienced an increase of less than 1% in premarket trading. On Wednesday, Alphabet eclipsed Apple to secure the second position in market capitalization, trailing only Nvidia, with a valuation just under $4 trillion.