Wall Street set to open lower after weak April jobs report

By Tanya Agrawal

REUTERS - Wall Street looked set to open lower on Friday after April payrolls data showed the U.S. economy added the fewest jobs in seven months, raising concerns that the weakness in overall economic activity was spilling over to the labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 160,000 jobs last month, far below the 202,000 economists polled by Reuters had forecast on average. The number was lower than the first-quarter average job growth of 200,000.

The data cast doubts on whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before the end of the year.

Concerns over mixed economic data and the slowing pace of global growth have clouded the path of interest rate hikes in the United States. The U.S. economy grew just 0.5 percent last quarter on an annualized basis and inflation has been below the Fed's 2 percent target for years.

"It's a disappointing number," said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Services in Troy, Michigan. "It does show businesses are more concerned about the economic outlook. Demand has been soft, so businesses are responding to that."

S&P 500 e-minis were down 12 points, or 0.59 percent, with 256,838 contracts traded at 8:41 a.m. ET (1241 GMT). Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 24 points, or 0.56 percent, on volume of 30,500 contracts. Dow e-minis were down 91 points, or 0.52 percent, with 30,650 contracts changing hands.

Traders are also pricing in only one rate hike this year - at the end of the year. The Fed's next meeting is on June 14-15.

An accommodative Federal Reserve and a recovery in oil prices have helped U.S. stocks rebound from sharp losses at the start of the year. However, the rally lost momentum in the past two weeks, weighed by underwhelming quarterly earnings and data.

Oil prices fell over 1 percent as investors cashed in on a 20-percent rise over the past month. [O/R]

First-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are mostly beating analysts' expectations, but are still estimated down 5.3 percent from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Shares of Yelp were up 12.7 percent at $24.15 in premarket trading after the company's revenue beat expectations.

Square fell 18.4 percent to $10.60 after the mobile payments company reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

GoPro fell 8.9 percent to $9.76 after the wearable action camera maker said it would delay the launch of its drone until the holiday shopping season.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)