U.S. equity futures whipsawed Thursday morning ahead of a slew of economic reports leading up to Friday’s jobs report.
The major futures indexes suggest a mixed start when the opening bell rings.
Oil prices rebounded on Thursday amid dollar weakness and as investors jumped back in after two sessions of steep losses.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded around $74.00 a barrel.
Brent crude futures traded around $79.00 a barrel.
Jobs will be a major focus over the next two days.
Thursday morning, the payroll processing firm ADP will release its National Employment report for December.
Economists anticipate an increase of 150,000 private-sector jobs, up from 127,000 new jobs added in October.
The Labor Department will release the number of new jobless claims that were filed last week. Expectations are for 225,000, unchanged from the prior week.
The Commerce Department is out with the U.S. trade balance for November. The monthly deficit in goods and services is expected to narrow to $73.0 billion.
In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei
225 rose 0.4%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.3% and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 1%.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 3,852.97, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% to 33,269.77, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.7% to 10,458.76.