Wall St eyes higher open after jobs data, Amazon boost
By Shubham Batra and Bansari Mayur Kamdar
(Reuters) — Wall Street was set to open higher on Friday after data showed the U.S. added fewer-than-expected jobs in July but retained enough momentum to likely shield the economy from a recession amid aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 187,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department data showed. Data for June was revised lower to 185,000 jobs added instead of the previously reported 209,000.
Average hourly earnings grew 0.4% in July, unchanged from the previous month but a tad higher than expectations, spurring worries of more interest rate hikes before the end of 2023. That kept the year-on-year increase in wages at 4.4%.
«Today's jobs report is slightly weaker than expected. Last month's results offered evidence that employment growth had begun to slow, and today's numbers indicate that a downward trend may be in motion,» said Richard Flynn, managing director at Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) UK.
«While this should be encouraging for policymakers as they continue to battle sticky inflation, the Fed would likely prefer to see wage gains closer to 3%. So further interest rate hikes may be around the corner.»
Meanwhile, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares surged 9.6% in premarket trading after the company issued an upbeat outlook for the third quarter. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)'s shares shed 2.6% as the iPhone maker forecast a continued slide in sales.
Shares of peers Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Snowflake rose between 0.5% and 5.2% after Amazon's cloud business segment beat sales estimates.
A Labor Department report on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased slightly last
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