• Stock futures edged up in Friday’s premarket.
• Investors are waiting on the monthly non-farm payrolls report, which tracks the US unemployment rate.
• Slowing job growth could encourage the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates.

US stocks looked set to rise at the opening bell Friday as investors waited for a key jobs report.

Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were up shortly after 5 a.m. ET, although the Dow Jones Industrial Average was on pace to shed about 40 points. Meanwhile, London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index was down about 0.4% in morning trading.

Chipmakers were again some of the biggest winners, with AI darling Nvidia up 3% in premarket trading in New York.

Investors will be eyeing non-farm payrolls report later, which tracks how many jobs the economy added last month.

The number of jobs added is expected to slow from 353,000 to 200,000, per economists polled by Bloomberg.

That slowdown could encourage the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates sooner in a bid to prevent a rise in unemployment.

On Wednesday Fed Chair Jerome Powell silenced the growing chorus of forecasters questioning the prospect of rate cuts this year by telling a congressional the central bank was still on pace to cut interest rates this year.

However, he said the Fed was waiting to see more data and a continued cooling of inflation before doing so.