US pre-open: Futures in the red ahead of NFP figures

Wall Street futures had sticks opening little changed ahead of the bell on Friday ahead of August's all-important nonfarm payrolls data.

As of 1215 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.12%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.08% and 0.27% softer, respectively.

The Dow closed 145.99 points higher on Thursday after reversing earlier losses.

Friday's primary focus will be last month's nonfarm payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at 1330 BST, with economists expecting to see the headline figure drop from 528,000 in July to 300,000 in August. The unemployment rate is predicted to have remained unchanged at 3.5%.

Markets.com's Neil Wilson said: "Eyes are on today's US nonfarm payrolls report, which is expected to show employers added around 300,000 jobs last month, a bit below the average of the last few months but in no way a problem for the Fed as it looks to turn the screws on monetary policy. Remember, a bad jobs report is probably better for the market than a good one – the stronger the labour market the more cover the Fed has to keep on raising rates. Whatever the short-term moves are, it ain't over until the Fed says so."

"The Homebase data point to another solid payroll gain, but the August seasonal is a wild card," chipped in Pantheon Macroeconomics's Ian Shepherdson.

Shepherdson was calling for a "solid" 400,000 person gain in payrolls for the month of August, putting him above the consensus for an increase of 300,000.

Elsewhere on the macro front, July factory orders data will follow at 1500 BST.

Also in focus, the US dollar index moved lower ahead of the bell to around the 109.30 level after the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note touched 3.27% - a marked increase since trading close to 3.0% on Monday.

Oil futures rose early in the morning but remained sharply lower for the week as a whole as market participants awaited an OPEC+ meeting scheduled for Monday, at which producers will discuss cutting output.

No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Friday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com