Wall St. hopes jobs report shows bright side

Ahead of the opening bell Friday markets were displaying some cautious optimism as they looked forward to the key government jobs report that will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Around a third of economists surveyed by USA TODAY now expect that 205,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy last month. An unchanged unemployment rate of 7% is expected. In recent days, some economists have been raising their forecasts for the pace of jobs growth following a bullish private survey of business hiring.

JOBS REPORT: Many economists foresee more strong job gains

The major U.S. pre-market indexes were on the rise on Friday. Dow Jones industrial average index futures rose 0.3%. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures added 0.3%. Nasdaq index futures advanced 0.5%.

Wall Street closed mostly lower in the prior session. The Dow fell 0.1% to 16,444.76. The Nasdaq composite dropped 0.2% to 4,156.19. The S&P 500 managed a small gain, rising to 1,838.13.

"U.S. economic data has increasingly outperformed relative to expectations in recent months, suggesting analysts continue to underestimate the resilience of the North American giant and opening the door for an upside surprise," said Ilya Spivak, currency strategist at DailyFX, in emailed comments.

THURSDAY: Stocks continue to struggle, close mostly lower

Benchmarks across Asia Friday saw choppy trading following China's release of trade data for December that showed a deceleration in export growth, which suggests demand from Western nations remains tepid. That glum news was partially offset by an increase in import growth that pointed to some resilience in the world's No. 2 economy.

The Shanghai composite index declined 0.7% to 2,013.30 and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.2% to 15, 912.06.

In the energy sector, benchmark crude for February delivery was up 97 cents to around $92.63 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 67 cents to $91.66 on Thursday.

In Europe, ther! e were broad-based gains for the major benchmarks. Britain's FTSE 100 index was up 0.6% and France's CAC 40 index added 0.5%.

Businesses added 238,000 jobs in December, according to the private payrolls processor ADP. That figure is the most since November 2011.

Contributing: Associated Press