U.S. stock futures are higher as investors search for signs that will help them determine if the economy is weakening after a shockingly weak jobs report on Aug. 1.
Businesses added a less-than-expected 73,000 new jobs in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Even worse, job gains for May and June were revised down by a whopping 258,000, portraying a much weaker labor market than believed in late spring and early summer and setting off alarms that the Federal Reserve may have been wrong about leaving interest rates unchanged last week.
Federal Reserve Governors Chris Waller and Michelle Bowman who voted to lower rates last week "commented that they felt the Fed was being 'overly cautious' with the risk that policy is 'falling behind the curve,'" said James Knightley, chief international economist at Dutch bank ING. "This sentiment is likely going to be felt more broadly within the Fed after (the jobs) numbers, especially with tariffs set to eat into household spending power and corporate profits, thus creating a major headwind for growth."
At 6 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow rose 0.64%, while broad S&P 500 futures added 0.64% and tech-heavy Nasdaq futures gained 0.76%.
