US pre-open: Stocks called to open higher ahead of Indepence Day weekend
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Thursday 02 Jul 2020
(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures had stocks opening higher ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants awaited a slew of data from the Department of Labor.
As of 1225 BST, Dow futures were up 0.98%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.66% and 0.41% higher, respectively.
The Dow closed 77.91 points lower on Wednesday despite "encouraging" clinical trial data from Pfizer and BioNTech for Covid-19 vaccine candidate, although the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite continued to push higher.
Sentiment was continuing to be boosted by the clinical trial results before the open, with Pfizer and BioNTech providing hope to investors that normality could indeed return at some point. While the data had not yet been reviewed by a medical journal, meaning that it was still in the very early stages, market participants were seemingly excited by the progress in developing a drug to defeat Covid-19 all the same.
Also firmly in focus will be the closely-watched monthly non-farm payrolls report, unemployment rate data and weekly jobless claims figures from the Department of Labor at 1330 BST, with economists expecting to see nearly three million jobs being added in June, the unemployment rate dropping to 12.4% from 13.3% in May and another 1.38m Americans filing for unemployment in the week ended 20 June.
Other macro releases scheduled for release include trade balance figures at 1330 BST, the ISM's New York Index at 1445 BST and monthly factory orders data at 1500 BST.
Wall Street will be closed for trading on Friday in observance of Independence Day.
In the corporate space, Coty shares were up 4.17% ahead of the bell after naming a new CEO and chairman.
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