Stock Futures Fall on Fed's Vague Rates Outlook and as Wall Street Eyes Jobs Report

New York (Feb 2)  Stock futures fell on Thursday following the Federal Reserve's vague outlook on rates for the rest of the year and as Wall Street waited for direction from the U.S. jobs report on Friday.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.24%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.24%, and Nasdaq futures declined by 0.3%.

The new board for the Federal Open Market Committee left the fed funds rate unchanged at its Wednesday meeting, though gave little information on rate hikes for the rest of the year. In its statement following the decision, the Fed reiterated that rate hikes would continue to be gradual and that the risks to its outlook remain roughly balanced. Fed watchers now look ahead to Fed Chair Janet Yellen's semi-annual monetary policy testimony before Congress on Feb. 14 and 15. Minutes of this meeting will be released on Feb. 22.

Weekly U.S. jobless claims will be released before the opening bell. The data will act as a preview before the official U.S. jobs report to be released on Friday. The nonfarm payrolls report is expected to show that the U.S. economy added 170,000 jobs to begin the new year and for the unemployment rate to hold at 4.7%. Average hourly earnings are expected to have risen 0.3%. The report is the most closely watched data of any month and can often determine market direction for the following sessions.

The Trump White House also kept markets on its toes as it has for the past two weeks since Donald Trump has been in office. On Wednesday, the White House warned Iran that new sanctions could be levied against the country following a recent ballistic missile-test launch. Second, media reports on Wednesday suggested Trump could use military force in Mexico to prevent immigrants crossing the border. Separately, tensions reportedly rose between the U.S. and Australia after a testy phone call between the two leaders over a previous refugee deal under the Obama administration.

Source: TheStreet