US futures are climbing as oil prices ease and investors await the US monthly jobs report due later in the day.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both rose 0.5 per cent on Friday. Nasdaq futures gained 0.7 per cent.
Oil prices declined as the US pressures Europe to release diesel reserves. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on social media platform X that the US's European partners should make deliveries of existing commitments faster and make additional supplies immediately available.
American farmers, truckers, and businesses should not be left carrying the burden of a global diesel shortage, he wrote. America is doing its part. We look to our allies to match their commitments with action.
American farmers, truckers, and businesses should not be left carrying the burden of a global diesel shortage, he wrote. “America is doing its part. We look to our allies to match their commitments with action
The US military is deploying thousands of troops aboard a group of ships, including a third aircraft carrier, to the Middle East, according to a US official on Thursday, after Trump on Wednesday threatened to blow them up or make a deal, referring to Iran, in an exchange with reporters.
Brent crude, the international standard, lost 2.4 per cent to below USD 100 a barrel, at USD 99.88, after advancing on Thursday. That's still well above the approximately USD 72 per barrel level in late February before the war. Benchmark US crude declined 3.7 per cent to USD 89.47 a barrel.
Investors and traders are monitoring closely the US monthly jobs report for September to be released on Friday, as the data could provide more insight into the likelihood of an October interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve, after the Fed raised rates in September for the first time in three years.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury was at around 5.22 per cent, after it reached 5.34 per cent on Thursday, the highest since 2002. It crossed the 5 per cent mark last month, as inflationary pressure from the global energy shock driven by the Iran war and rising US government debt pushed investors to demand higher returns.
The 5 per cent level on the US 10-year Treasury yield has been an “important psychological threshold†for investors, David Clewell, a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said in commentary this week.
Factoring in the US's resilient economic growth, there is a credible likelihood that the US 10-year Treasury yield can rise toward 5.5 per cent to 6 per cent, Clewell suggested. Ballooning bond yields have been putting downward pressure on stock markets, as higher borrowing costs can undercut stock returns.
In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 climbed 0.3 per cent. France's CAC 40 rose 0.6 per cent, while Germany's DAX was up 1.2 per cent. That came a day after Europe's benchmark stock indexes fell sharply as government bond yields shot up.
Asian markets were mostly lower. Markets in mainland China were closed for a holiday.