- Prior to the release of US employment statistics, which will be closely examined for hints on the direction of Federal Reserve interest rates, US equities futures gave up some of their earlier gains and Treasuries added to this week's severe decline.
- Positive earnings news from Amazon helped modest increases in contracts for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes keep US equities on schedule to marginally cut their largest weekly fall since March. The STOXX 600 index for Europe declined.
- When the maker of the iPhone reported a third consecutive quarter of dropping sales, Apple's market capitalization was on track to go below the record $3 trillion milestone. After exceeding expectations for sales, Amazon, the largest e-commerce and cloud services provider in the world, saw a 9% increase in premarket trading.
- It is anticipated that the US added 200,000 jobs in July according to Friday's non-farm payrolls data. Even though it would be the worst print since the end of 2020, that level is still high historically, and a number higher than that could encourage expectations on additional Fed rate hikes. A report released on Thursday highlighted the US labour market's continued strength and the cautious outlook for the markets.
- The ECB will probably not need to raise its near-term inflation forecasts further in September - Fitch.
