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Stock futures were higher again on Friday as traders await the release of the December jobs report.
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Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 104 points, a gain of 0.3%, while the S&P 500 was up a similar amount. The Nasdaq, which jumped above 13,000 on Thursday on the back of gains in Big Tech companies such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, was up 0.4%.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I:DJI | DOW JONES AVERAGES | 31041.13 | +211.73 | +0.69% |
| SP500 | S&P 500 | 3803.79 | +55.65 | +1.48% |
| I:COMP | NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX | 13067.479759 | +326.69 | +2.56% |
DOW CLOSES ABOVE 31K, NASDAQ 13K FOR 1ST TIME WITH ‘ORDERLY TRANSITION’ OF WHITE HOUSE AHEAD
JOBS IN FOCUS AMID PANDEMIC
Traders will be paying extra attention to the December jobs report after ADP reported that the U.S. lost 123,000 jobs in December, compared to a gain of 88,000. Expectations have been ratcheted down for the pending release and economists surveyed by Refinitiv now expect the country to add 71,000 jobs in the final month of 2020.
The unemployment rate is expected to tick up slightly to 6.8%, up from 6.7% in November. Though elevated, that’s down from 14.7% when the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. into a lockdown and the highest print since record-keeping began in 1948.
Average hourly earnings are expected to rise by 0.2% from November and 4.4% from December 2019.
The U.S. surpassed 21.5 million cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 4,000 Americans died of the virus on Thursday, a new record.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 130.92 | +4.32 | +3.41% |
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 3,162.16 | +23.78 | +0.76% |
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP. | 218.29 | +6.04 | +2.85% |
APPLE CAR TALK SENDS HYUNDAI SURGING
Though rumors of an Apple-branded car have existed for years, South Korean automaker Hyundai confirmed on Friday it was in early talks with the U.S. tech giant, lifting shares of Hyundai 25%.
“Apple and Hyundai are in discussions but they are at an early stage and nothing has been decided,” Hyundai said in a statement.
The company later issued a regulatory filing, noting it was “getting requests for cooperation on joint development of autonomous electric vehicles from various companies.”
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSLA | TESLA INC. | 816.04 | +60.06 | +7.94% |
| GM | GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY | 43.32 | +0.34 | +0.79% |
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that an Apple-branded car, which would compete with Tesla, GM and other electric vehicles, would not be ready until at least 2025.
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In other asset classes, bitcoin traded above the $41,000 level in morning trading, doubling in less than a month, pushing its market value above $1 trillion for the first time.
Oil also rose, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil climbing to $51.31 per-barrel level, while gold fell more than 1% to $1,891.90 an ounce.
