Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on June 3, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Stock futures are near flat Tuesday night as investors geared up for private payroll data while analyzing the latest corporate earnings.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures advanced 49 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures also each rose around 0.1%.
In after-hours trading, Hewlett Packard Enterprise climbed more than 16% after surpassing Wall Street expectations on both lines in its fiscal second quarter. CrowdStrike jumped almost 7% on stronger-than-expected earnings and guidance.
Those moves follow a muted but winning day on Wall Street. The Dow climbed about 140 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each added close to 0.2%.
Tuesday brought the first of several data points offering insight to the state of the labor market, an important topic for traders looking for signs that the Federal Reserve has seen enough economic tightening to begin cutting interest rates. Job opening and labor turnover data came out Tuesday morning — known as JOLTS — and showed 8.059 million vacancies in April, the lowest level in more than three years. It also came in well below the 8.4 million consensus forecast from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
The next notable set of employment stats come Wednesday morning with a release from ADP. Economists polled by Dow Jones are anticipating the data will show private employers added 175,000 jobs in May.
Traders will also monitor data on services and nonmanufacturing purchasing due Wednesday. After that, attention will turn to weekly jobless claims numbers on Thursday and Friday’s all-important May jobs report.
“Upcoming labor market releases are a clear focus for the broad market,” said Bill Northey, investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “Investors are eyeing the most recent readings on labor market health — JOLTS today, the ADP survey tomorrow and the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] labor report on Friday. All are important data points from a monetary policy standpoint.”
On the earnings front, discount retailer Dollar Tree is expected to share results before the bell. Athleisure maker Lululemon is slated to post earnings after the market closes.
