Wall St futures up on jobs data; Silicon Valley Bank halted

Wall Street futures reversed course Friday after the government reported another healthy month of hiring in February.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1% and futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3%. Both were down before the report was released. Oil prices also rebounded.

The Labor Department reported Friday that America’s employers added a substantial 311,000 jobs in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.6% from a 53-year low of 3.4%, as more Americans began searching for work and not all of them found jobs.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 index fell by its biggest one-day margin this year after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned rates might be raised faster than expected to cool stubbornly high inflation.

Adding to the rout was SVB Financial Group, which lost 60% of its value Thursday after announcing plans to raise up to $1.75 billion to strengthen its financial position amid concerns about higher interest rates and the economy. The SVB news dragged Bank of America, Citigroup and others along with it, though they had stabilized by premarket Friday.

Trading in SVB was halted Friday before the bell after shares continued to slide another 60% in off-hours trading.

Traders looked ahead to U.S. government hiring data due out Friday after other indicators showed the job market has stayed strong despite repeated interest rate hikes. That is good for workers, but Fed officials worry rising wages might fuel inflation. That might lead to more rate hikes to dampen business activity and hiring.

Fed officials are “clearly messaging that rates will move higher,” Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics said...