Stocks – U.S. Futures Drift Higher on China News Ahead of Payrolls

Investing.com — U.S. stock futures drifted higher early Friday in New York, consolidating overnight gains made after China said it would waive import tariffs on U.S. pork and .

Beijing had applied tariffs of 25% on both products in response to similar measures by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier in the year. The move is, however, easy to over-interpret, given that China has suffered from acute inflation in pork prices this year as an epidemic of African swine flu has wiped out much of its pig population. There was no sign of China giving ground over other central U.S. demands in the trade talks.

By 7:17 AM ET (1217 GMT), were up 64 points or 0.2%, while were up 0.2% and were up 0.3%.

Much of the early action in individual stocks was set to be in smaller companies, with Sage Therapeutic (NASDAQ:) set to bounce at least a little after falling 60% on Thursday due to its key depression drug failing in tests. JPMorgan (NYSE:) thinks the stock has overshot, putting out a new target price of $105, according to various reports. That compares to a closing price of $60.18 on Thursday. It’s up 4.9% in premarket trade.

Also in the spotlight is Zoom Video (NASDAQ:), whose better-than-expected earnings and revenue failed to compensate for an outlook that didn’t live up to Wall Street’s hopes. It fell 8.9% in after-hours trading, giving up almost all of its gains since IPOing in the spring.

Uber Technologies (NYSE:) was marked down 1.5% in early premarket deals after publishing a review into safety standards that showed 515 attempted rapes by its U.S. drivers last year, and nearly 6,000 incidents of sexual abuse overall.

Elsewhere, futures fell 0.5% after the so-called OPEC+ grouping signed off on what analysts said was a largely symbolic additional cut of 500,000 barrels a day of production through March 2021. That brings the production ceiling largely into line with the actual level of current output, given that Saudi Arabia is producing below its agreed quota.

The , which measures the greenback against a basket of six advanced economy currencies, was up less than 0.1% at 97.415, while were own 0.2% at $1,480.55 a troy ounce.

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