US stock futures rose on Friday as May’s key job report showed solid gains, adding to confidence in the economic comeback.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%. Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures offset previous losses and rose 80 points. Nasdaq 100 futures were 0.5% higher.
The US economy created 559,000 jobs in May, the Department of Labor said on Friday. The number was slightly below an estimate of 671,000 by economists polled by the Dow Jones but still showed a healthy rebound in the job market as it rose from a disappointing 266,000 in April.
The unemployment rate fell from 6.1% to 5.8%, which is better than the estimate of 5.9%. Many believe the job report, while solid, is not strong enough to cause the Federal Reserve to roll back its bond-buying program.
The number of jobs is “goldilocks for risk,” said John Briggs, global head of strategy at NatWest Markets. It is “not too hot to introduce the Fed and not too cold to worry about the economy.”
The yield on 10-year government bonds fell slightly after the job report. Bond yields had risen in recent months amid rising inflation expectations.
The S&P 500 is just 1% off its all-time high reached last month. The stock benchmark was down about 0.3% this week through Thursday.
Meme stocks continued their frantic volatility on Thursday, particularly AMC Entertainment. The cinema operator announced Thursday morning that it would sell 11.5 million shares, only to announce a few hours later that it had already completed its share offering and raised $ 587.4 million in additional capital.
AMC was down another 7% in Friday’s pre-trading session after losing 18% in the previous session. BlackBerry also traded lower pre-trading, but stocks are still up more than 50% for the week.
Facebook shares fell slightly in pre-market trading after the company was hit by new antitrust investigations from the UK and the EU.
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– with reports from CNBC’s Patti Domm.
