By Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta
(Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a muted open on Friday, as investors expected the Federal Reserve to take a more cautious stance on interest rates after the latest batch of jobs data.
A Labor Department report showed the U.S. economy added 143,000 jobs in January, compared with a rise of 170,000 expected by economists.
The unemployment rate stood at 4%, compared with the expectations of 4.1%, while average earnings rose 0.5% on a monthly basis against forecasts of 0.3% growth.
For December, the nonfarm payrolls number was revised to 307,000 from 256,000.
"It’s enough to keep the Fed on the sidelines, but also put just a seed of doubt about the economic strength in the back of investors’ minds," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.
"I don’t think it’s a negative print, but I don’t think it’s a big risk-on print either."
Traders of short-term interest-rate futures continue to bet the Fed will next cut its policy rate in June after the data.
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan had signaled overnight that she was ready to keep interest rates on hold for "quite some time" even if inflation drops closer to the Fed’s 2% goal, as long as the labor market does not falter.
Meanwhile, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) dipped 2.7% in premarket trading due to weakness in the retailer’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, and lower-than-expected forecasts for first-quarter revenue and profit.
At 08:42 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 40 points, or 0.09%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 3.75 points, or 0.06, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 12.25 points, or 0.06%.
Markets had a dismal start to the week when U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping trade tariffs over the weekend, but suspended the levies on goods from Mexico and Canada on Monday for a month.
Since then, a host of strong earnings and optimism about a potential China-U.S. trade deal despite Beijing’s tit-for-tat tariffs have set all three major indexes on track for weekly gains, with the Dow on pace for its fourth straight weekly rise.
Of the 292 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, more than 76% beat analysts’ expectations, according to data compiled by LSEG.
A preliminary reading of U.S. consumer sentiment for February is due shortly after markets open.
Among other early movers, Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) jumped 22% after the image-sharing platform forecast first-quarter revenue above market estimates.
Elf Beauty tumbled 24.4% after the cosmetics company cut its annual net sales and profit forecasts, while Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) added 11.1% after the online travel platform posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.
Chipmaker Microchip Technology (NASDAQ:MCHP) fell 5.4% after forecasting fourth-quarter net sales and profit below estimates, while Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) advanced 6.2% after the cybersecurity company forecast its full-year revenue above estimates.