Stock Futures Pare Gains After Tepid Jobs Report

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures quickly pared gains Friday after a worse-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report.

"There is nothing good in this report," said David Ader, strategist at CRT Group, soon after the report was released Friday.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were rising 10 points, or 2 points above fair value, at 13,285. Futures for the S&P 500 were up 1.9 points, or 1.78 points above fair value, at 1433. Futures for the Nasdaq were up 0.5 points, 2.71 points below fair value, at 2826.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that 96,000 jobs were added to the U.S. work force in August, far below the addition of 125,000 jobs that economists were expecting. Meanwhile, the report showed that the unemployment rate edged down to 8.1%; economists had expected the unemployment rate to stay at 8.3%.

In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged down by 1 cent to $23.52. Hourly earnings were forecast to have risen 0.2%.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.4 hours in August.

Stock futures earlier Friday were pointing to a modestly higher open thanks in large part to the unveiling of the European Central Bank's bond-buying plans.

China's approval this week of 60 infrastructure projects valued at more than 1 trillion yuan ($157 billion), or 2.1% of the country's gross domestic product, and data showing a gain in both exports and imports in Germany, the eurozone's largest economy, was also helping the market outlook.

The FTSE in London was up by 0.17%, while the DAX in Germany was rising 0.83%.

The Hong Kong Hang Seng index finished up by 3.09% and the Nikkei in Japan closed up 2.2%.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was down 15/32, raising the yield to 1.733%. The greenback was down 0.22%, according to the dollar index.

October crude oil futures were up 30 cents at $95.83 a barrel and December gold futures were down $8.10 at $1,697.50 an ounce.

It was a breakout day for U.S. stocks Thursday as Wall Street cheered the European Central Bank's bond-buying plan and a batch of positive employment data raised the stakes for the August jobs report.

On the corporate front Friday, Smith & Wesson (SWHC), the gun maker, posted fiscal first-quarter net income from continuing operations of $18.9 million, or 28 cents a share, on revenue of $136 million, topping the estimates of Wall Street analysts.

The company also lifted its outlook for the fiscal year ending in April 2013, forecasting earnings of 85 cents to 90 cents a share on revenue ranging from $530 million to $540 million.

Lululemon Athletica (LULU), the designer and retailer of technical athletic apparel, boosted its full-year outlook after reporting better-than expected second-quarter earnings of 34 cents a share on revenue of $282.6 million. Same-store sales increased 15%. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 31 cents a share on revenue of $282.76 million.

Dell's (DELL) board approved the PC maker's first-ever quarterly payout of 8 cents a share, payable on Oct. 22 to shareholders of record on Oct. 1.

Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday launched a host of new Kindle Fire and Kindle products.

Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD family is an attempt to take market share from Apple' (AAPL) iPad.

Apple is in talks to license music for a custom-radio service similar to the one operated by Pandora Media (P), according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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--Written by Andrea Tse in New York.



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