Eyes on July nonfarm payrolls
U.S. stock futures were little changed on Friday morning, following a record close for the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite yesterday as traders waited for the release of the closely watched July jobs report.
By 5:20 a.m. ET, futures for the blue-chip Dow were indicated 13 points, or 0.04% to 34,956. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures gave away 17.50 points, or 0.12% to 15,120.25 while S&P 500 futures were unchanged.
As the week comes to a close, the focus will be on the U.S. jobs report for July due out at 8:30 a.m. ET. Market participants will be closely watching the report to see if it could sway the Federal Reserve’s patience on its easy-money policies.
Economists expect the report to show the economy added 788,000 jobs last month, compared with a gain of 850,000 jobs in June. The unemployment rate is projected to have ticked down to 5.7% from 5.9%.
Qualcomm joins Magna in race to acquire Veoneer, offers $27 a share
Chipmaker Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) on Thursday sweetened its bid to buy Veoneer (NYSE: VNE) for $4.6 billion, ramping up pressure on the automotive safety electronics company to ditch Magna International (NYSE: MGA).
In a press release, Qualcomm said it plans to offer $37 per share in cash, an 18.4% premium to the $31.25 per share that Magna had agreed to offer Veoneer on July 22.
Qualcomm added that its board of directors has approved the offer, and it does not require approval by its shareholders. The chipmaker noted the offer is also not contingent on financing conditions and expects to fund the deal with existing cash resources.
Veoneer announced that its board would evaluate the proposal from Qualcomm consistent with its legal duties and the terms of the Magna merger agreement.
Shares of Veoneer rocketed 28.48% during Thursday’s regular trading session but were down 3.91% in the premarket session on Friday.
Novavax stock under pressure after delaying FDA submission for Covid-19 vaccine
Meanwhile, shares of Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) are struggling after the company announced late Thursday that it intends to submit for emergency use authorization to the U.S. FDA in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The drugmaker had previously planned to seek regulatory approval for the NVX-CoV2373 coronavirus vaccine candidate in Q3 2021.
Separately, Novavax reported a second-quarter loss of $352.3 million, or $4.75 per share, which was far wider than analysts had forecast.
Revenue jumped to $298 million from $35.5 million in the same period last year. Analysts had called for a loss of $3.63 per share on revenue of $387.9 million.
Novavax stock tumbled $23.58, or 9.98% to $212.62 per share in premarket trade Friday.
