By Kanchana Chakravarty and Sukriti Gupta
(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures nudged higher on Friday as investors awaited monthly payrolls data, while Tesla shares rebounded on signs of cooling tensions between CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Shares of the electric carmaker rose 4.2% in premarket trading after plunging about 15% on Thursday following Trump’s public feud with Musk, including threats to cut off government contracts with Musk’s companies.
Tesla shed about $150 billion in market value on Thursday, weighing on Wall Street indexes. White House aides scheduled a call between Trump and Musk for Friday, Politico reported, likely to ease the feuding after an extraordinary day of hostilities.
A slew of soft economic data this week has raised concerns about an economic slowdown caused by trade uncertainties, with investors looking to May non-farm payrolls at 8:30 a.m. ET to gauge the labor market’s health and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate trajectory.
“Whether it’s the ISM surveys, the ADP figures, or the jobless claims, the tone is clearly one of a weakening economic momentum,” said Julien Lafargue, chief market strategist at Barclays Private Bank.
The payrolls data comes ahead of the Fed’s policy meeting later this month where traders expect the U.S. central bank to keep interest rates unchanged.
Traders currently expect two rate cuts by the end of this year, with the first 25 basis-point cut seen in September, according to data compiled by LSEG.
On Thursday, investors also took stock of a leader-to-leader call between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they confronted after weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals. The leaders, however, left key issues unresolved for future talks.
U.S. equities rallied sharply in May, with the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq scoring their biggest monthly percentage gains since November 2023, thanks to softening of Trump’s harsh trade stance and upbeat earnings reports.
The S&P 500 remains nearly 3.3% below record highs touched in February.
At 7:00 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 112 points, or 0.26%, S&P 500 E-minis were higher 20.5 points, or 0.34%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis rose 72.25 points, or 0.33%.
Most megacap and growth stocks rose in early trading. Shares of Amazon advanced 0.9%.
Broadcom shares fell 2.9% after the networking and custom AI chipmaker’s quarterly revenue forecast failed to impress investors.
Lululemon shares lost 21.1% as the sportswear maker cut its annual profit target, citing higher costs from Trump’s tariffs. Shares of Nike fell 1.3%.
Shares of virtual document signing platform DocuSign fell 19.2% after first-quarter results.
(Reporting by Kanchana Chakravarty and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
