STOCK MARKET NEWS: Job growth surges, Amazon-Roomba’s $1.7B deal, Nasdaq falls

U.S. equity futures are mixed ahead of the most anticipated economic report of the month. 

The major futures indexes are trading between gains and losses.

Oil traded choppy on Friday, attempting a rebound from the previous session, as supply shortage concerns were beating fuel demand worries.

West Texas Intermediate crude traded around $89.00 a barrel. Brent crude was at $94.00 a barrel.

The key economic report of the week comes before the opening bell when the Labor Department is expected to say the U.S. economy added 250,000 new nonfarm jobs in July. “It won’t be like the 372,000 we saw in June,” said Joanie Bily, Workforce Analyst at Employbridge. “We could see revisions and even see June’s number revised.”

it would mark the weakest job growth since December 2020, consistent with other data showing cooling labor market. The unemployment rate is anticipated to hold steady at 3.6% for the fifth month in a row.

AMC Entertainment shares are 7% lower in premarket trading after the company reported a bigger-than-expected loss
 and announced it will pay a special dividend in the form of preferred shares.

DoorDash shares are 11% higher in premarket trading after the company said it received a record number of customer orders in the second quarter, boosted by resilient demand and its acquisition of Finnish delivery service Wolt Enterprises.

The second-busiest week of 2Q earnings season wraps up Friday morning with results from Goodyear Tire, data storage giant Western Digital, broadcasters Gray Television and AMC Networks, movie theater operator Cinemark Holdings, and fantasy and sports betting giant DraftKings among many others. 

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.9%, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.2% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index advanced 1.2%.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 index closed 0.1% lower on Thursday while investors digested corporate earnings reports and waited for the jobs data.

The S&P 500 declined to 4,151.94 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% to 32,726.82. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.4% to 12,720.58.