United States stock futures were little changed on Wednesday night (Thursday AEST), as investors digested fresh record highs on Wall Street and turned their attention toward the closely watched June nonfarm payrolls report due later in the session.
As of 9:30 am AEST (11:30 pm GMT), futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100 were each up by less than 0.1%.
In extended trading, online travel platform TripAdvisor popped 6.7% after The Wall Street Journal reported that activist hedge fund Starboard Value had acquired a stake exceeding 9% in the company.
Cloud monitoring and analytics firm Datadog soared 10.4% after being announced as the latest company to join the S&P 500 Index. The stock will officially be added before trading begins on Wednesday, July 9, replacing Juniper Networks following its acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise on July 2.
The subdued movement in futures followed a mixed session for equities. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.5% and 0.9% respectively, refreshing record highs, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished just 0.02% lower.
The gains were underpinned by upbeat sentiment following President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. had reached a trade agreement with Vietnam.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump revealed that the deal includes a 20% tariff on Vietnamese imports and a 40% tariff on transshipped goods - items routed through Vietnam from other countries.
The positive trade news helped offset some concern stemming from a weak labour market reading earlier in the day. Private payrolls processor ADP reported that U.S. private sector employment fell by 33,000 in June, marking the first monthly decline since March 2023 and missing consensus expectations for a gain of 95,000 jobs.
Markets are now turning their attention to Thursday’s official June jobs report from the Bureau of Labour Statistics.
Economists expect that 110,000 jobs were added last month, down from 139,000 in May. The unemployment rate is forecast to tick up to 4.3%, from 4.2% previously.
In Washington, political developments also remained on the radar. Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending bill passed the Senate on Tuesday but now returns to the House, where intra-party disagreements among Republican lawmakers persist.
Meanwhile, markets are set for a shortened trading session on Thursday, in observance of the U.S. Independence Day holiday, with markets remaining closed on Friday.
