Stock markets head for higher open on solid U.S. job creation data

U.S. futures rose on the news that revisions showed even higher job gains for the last two months.

The U.S. Labour Department said that 20,000 more jobs than originally reported were created in December while January job creation was revised upward by 41,000.

The Dow Jones industrial futures rose 28 points to 12,872, the Nasdaq futures gained seven points to 12,851 and the S&P 500 futures were up 0.9 of a point to 1,361.5.

The news wasn’t quite so good in Canada where a soft jobs report for February reflected a slower economy.

Statistics Canada said that the Canadian economy unexpectedly shed 2,800 jobs last month. Economists had expected the economy to create about 15,000 jobs during the month.

Statistics Canada also reported that the unemployment rate dipped to 7.4% from 7.6%.

The drop in the unemployment rate occurred not because the economy created jobs, but because the number of Canadians looking for employment fell by 37,900, all in Ontario.

The Canadian dollar shed early losses following the release of the American jobs data and rose 0.06 of a cent to 100.96 cents US.

Meanwhile, there was relief after Greece persuaded the vast majority of its private creditors to slash the value of their Greek bond holdings, which should pave the way for the country’s second massive international bailout.

Greece’s Finance Ministry said Friday that 85.8% of private investors holding its Greek-law bonds had signed up to the deal, and that it aimed to use legislation forcing those creditors still holding out of the deal to participate. After accounting for bonds that are governed by foreign laws, that proportion drops to 83.5%.

The government said the deal will massively reduce the country’s debt by €105 billion, or about 50 percentage points of gross domestic product.

If the swap had failed, Greece would have faced defaulting on its debts in two weeks, when it faced a large bond redemption.

Investors also looked to the next step: a decision later Friday about whether the bond-swap deal would trigger insurance payments on those bonds. Most analysts expect the insurance, known as credit default swaps, to be paid out.

Although the bond insurance payouts are expected to be relatively small — about US$3.2 billion in total — the uncertainty over who will take losses and who will be liable to make payments is making some investors cautious.

The TSX should find some support from rising commodity prices.

The April crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 24 cents to US$106.82 a barrel.

May copper advanced three cents as to US$3.82 a pound.

But gold reversed course and moved down $6 to US$1,692.70 an ounce.

European markets were mixed as London’s FTSE 100 index dipped 0.05% while Frankfurt’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up 0.34%.

Earlier, Asian markets were reassured by news that China’s inflation fell sharply in February, giving Beijing more leeway to stimulate the world’s second-biggest economy. Consumer price inflation fell to 3.2% from January’s 4.5%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed up 1.7% to its highest finish in more than seven months.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.9%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.9% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed one per cent.

Mainland China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.8% and the Shenzhen Composite Index shot up 1.6%.