Reply #6: U.S. stock futures slip before payrolls report

[ozymandius]

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures declined Friday ahead of the release of the key monthly employment report, with Harley-Davidson slashing its earnings forecast and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saying he sees parallels between the current situation and the stock-market crash of 1987.
S&P 500 futures fell 7.1 points at 1,472.50 and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 11.25 points at 1,992.50. Dow industrial futures fell 53 points.

U.S. stocks closed with modest gains on Thursday, as economic reports helped to quell concerns about a hard landing. Many of the retailers rose on the back of better-than-forecast August same-store sales, while Apple declined on continued concerns about the iPhone price cut. The Dow industrials rose 57 points, the S&P 500 rose 6 points and the Nasdaq Composite added 8 points.

The focus on Friday will be the monthly payrolls report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and markets could conceivably prefer a number showing a weak reading, as it would remove one stumbling block to a rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

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Also on the economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday in a televised interview that strains in global credit markets could take months to work out as the markets reassess the price of risk.

Greenspan meanwhile told a conference that the current market turmoil resembles 1987 and 1998.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/back-to-school-luxury-shopping-lifts-august/~/Indications?dist=morenews_ts