By Amruta Khandekar and Shristi Achar A
(Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes were set to open higher on Friday as concerns over aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve ebbed after data showed signs of cooling wage inflation and a rise in the unemployment rate in February.
While the closely watched non-farm payrolls report showed the U.S. economy added jobs at a solid pace in February, average hourly earnings rose 0.2% last month after gaining 0.3% in January, while the unemployment rate rose to 3.6% last month.
The data had been a focus area for markets concerned about aggressive interest rate hikes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish remarks earlier this week, as any cooling in the labor market could persuade the Fed to ease their monetary policy approach.A separate report on Thursday showed a sharp rise in jobless claims, which had also buoyed hopes of the Fed softening its monetary policy stance.
"The headline number beat expectations, but the details are what's much more important and perhaps encouraging to those who think that the Fed doesn't need to do a 50 basis point hike," said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Allspring Global Investments.
"There's not a lot of evidence that wages are spiraling out of control It means that maybe the Fed would be comfortable doing 25 basis points at their next meeting."
Wall Street's main indexes had recorded steep losses in the previous session after startups-focused lender SVB Financial Group's share sale to shore up its balance sheet wiped out more than $80 billion in value from bank shares.
Trading in shares of SVB was halted on Friday after falling over 40% before the bell.
Shares of its peers First Republic Bank, Comerica (NYSE:CMA) Inc, and Signature Bank were down between 3% and 20%.
All three major U.S. indexes are headed towards weekly losses as Fed Chair Jerome Powell earlier this week left open the possibility of a large rate hike at the Fed's March meeting, after the central bank dialed down the size of its rate hike last month.
At 8:54 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 56 points, or 0.17%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 17.75 points, or 0.45%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 85.75 points, or 0.71%.were up 85.75 points, or 0.71%
Among other stocks, Gap Inc (NYSE:GPS) fell 8% in premarket trading after the apparel maker posted a bigger-than-expected fourth-quarter loss and forecast full-year sales below Wall Street estimates.
Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) slid 4.4% after the software firm missed third-quarter revenue estimates, while Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT) slipped 1.4% after UBS downgraded the equipment maker to "sell" from "neutral".
DocuSign dropped 13.6% as the digital document signing tool provider forecast first-quarter revenue below estimates and announced its chief financial officer's exit.