US pre-open: Futures little changed ahead of jobs data

Wall Street futures were little changed ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants looked ahead to a number of data points that should provide more insight into the current state of the US economy.

As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones and S&P 500 futures were up 0.06% and 0.02%, respectively, will Nasdaq futures had the index opening 0.12% softer.

The Dow closed 38.04 points higher on Wednesday, doing little to reclaim the previous session's heavy losses.

Scope Markets' Joshua Mahony said: "Today promises a fresh bout of volatility for global markets, as the release of ADP payrolls, unemployment claims, and the ISM services PMI provide fresh ammunition for traders to utilise. Following the sharp declines seen in the wake of the ISM manufacturing PMI (accounting for only 9% of the US economy), today's services read-out should be viewed as a more reliable gauge of economic health going forward.

"After-all, weakness within the manufacturing sector has been a theme of the past two-years. Meanwhile, the ADP payrolls figure is widely expected to stabilise after recent declines took it into a six-month low of 122k. Coming off the back of four consecutive declines in the ADP payrolls figure, the predicted rise to 145k could bring about a relief rally for stock."

On the macro front, US job cuts rose to 75,891 in August, according to data from Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a sharp increase from July's reading of 25,885.

Still to come, ADP employment change figures, weekly jobless claims numbers and Q2 nonfarm productivity data will all be out at 1330 BST, while S&P Global's August composite and services PMIs will be published at 1445 BST and the ISM's August services PMI will follow at 1500 BST.

No major corporate earnings were scheduled for release on Thursday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com