US equity futures were little changed on Friday, consolidating the prior session’s rebound after dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials eased fears of another rate hike. Futures tied to the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq 100 hovered around the flatline.
Investors were focused on the incoming jobs report, which is expected to show the unemployment rate holding at 4.1% alongside a rebound in payroll growth. That outlook is broadly consistent with recent FOMC commentary that the labor market is no longer operating above full employment. At the same time, Fed Governor Waller reiterated that an additional rate increase would likely be unnecessary if underlying measures of inflation continue to cool, providing support for equities across sectors.
Semiconductor stocks led early gains after a week of underperformance. Lam Research, Applied Materials, and SanDisk each rose nearly 3% in premarket trading. Marvell Technology, Micron Technology, Intel, and Nvidia advanced more than 1%, buoyed by renewed optimism surrounding OpenAI’s latest GPT model.
