Wall Street Set For A Lower Start As Investors Await Jobs Report

New York, NY (AHN) - Futures turn red ahead of monthly jobs report with higher unemployment rate, which would confirm that the eonomy is deep into recession and it is expected to trail into next year. Wall Street is set to open lower on Friday.

The investors and market analysts on Wall Street await the Labor Department's report on last month's job losses, which is expected to decline by 350,000 jobs, the highest since May 1980 when the number of jobs lost were at 431,000 a month.

The business economists and analysts expect the unemployment rate to range between 7.5 percent to 9 percent in 2009. The Department's monthly employment report is due out at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

At 7:08 a.m. EDT in New York, S&P futures were trading lower by 6.20 points or 0.73 percent at 841.40 points, NASDAQ futures was moving down by 12.00 points or 1.06 percent at 1,123.00 points.

While, the Dow was trading up at 47.00 points or 0.56 percent at 8,350.00 points at the same time.

Crude rates hit a four-year low in overnight trading after declining below $44 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. The contract has tumbled more than 70 percent from its peak level in July.

The market analysts are projecting that oil prices is likely to fall below $25 a barrel next year and gas prices could drop lower than $1 in most regions of the markets as the recession expands to China.

Merrill Lynch Commodity Strategist Francisco Blanch, an energy analyst and CEO, said in a report on Thursday that demand is expected to consistently fall next year as slowdown in economy continues.

A light sweet crude for January delivery had closed down by $3.12, or 6.7 percent, to $43.67 a barrel in electronic trading. The prices were moving up slightly recently.

Traders will look closely at the market reaction on automakers' fate on Capitol Hill as the Detroit's Big Three companies (General Motors Corp. (GM), Ford Motors Corp. (F) and Chrysler LLC) try to gain more fund from the government on the second day of testimony to save themselves from filing bankruptcy.

In currency trading, the yen fell back as it changed hands at 95.19 yen per U.S. dollar in Asia on Friday, after it closed at 92.22 yen per dollar late Thursday in New York.