U.S. stock futures pointed to a flat to lower start on Monday, following last week’s strong jobs data, as investors look ahead to another busy week for data and the start of first-quarter earnings season. How are stock-index futures trading?
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.02%
were up 0.75 point at 4,132
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.05%
rose 9 points to 33,668
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
-0.13%
fell 16,25 points, or 0.1%, to 13,153.75.
Stock and bond markets were closed for the Good Friday holiday. Following a volatile session on Thursday, the Dow industrials
DJIA,
+0.01%
rose 2.57 points to end almost flat at 33,485.29, the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.36%
rose 0.4% to 4,105.02, while the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+0.76%
gained 0.8% to finish at 12,087.96. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indexes each snapped 3-week win streaks.
What’s driving the markets? Data released on Friday showed the U.S. added 236,000 new jobs in March, dashing the Reserve’s hopes for a big slowdown in hiring and possibly opening the door to another interest-rate hike in May. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal predicted 238,000 new jobs would be created. The unemployment rate edged down to 3.5% from 3.6% and wages rose 0.3%. Hopes that the Fed’s rate-hiking program was nearing an …