Wall Street inches higher before the bell ahead of critical jobs data release this week

Wall Street inched higher ahead of new jobs data this week that could influence the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy decision later this month.

Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each rose 0.2% before the opening bell Thursday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged.

Shares of American Eagle Outfitters are up 26% after the teen fashion retailer reported more than double the second-quarter profit that Wall Street forecast late Wednesday. The company benefitted from a frenzy of media attention in late July over its intentionally provocative advertising campaign featuring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney.

The ads — which featured the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” — sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture.

Google gave back a sliver of Wednesday's 9.1% gain after it avoided some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case. Share of the tech giant ticked down less than 1% before the bell.

Later Thursday, the government releases its latest weekly layoffs data, setting the table for the more important August jobs report on Friday.

On Wednesday, government data showed that U.S. employers were advertising 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists had forecast and the latest sign of a weakening U.S. labor market.

A deteriorating jobs landscape could push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at a meeting later this month. That’s the widespread expectation among traders, with the next big data point coming on Friday via an update on U.S. hiring during August.

Last month's grim July jobs report, which included massive downward revisions for June and May, sent financial markets spiraling and prompted President Donald Trump to fire the head of the agency that compiles the monthly data.

Lower interest rates could give the job market and overall economy a boost. The downside is that they can also push inflation higher when Trump’s tariffs may be already on the way to raising prices for all kinds of imports.

In Europe at midday Germany's DAX climbed 0.8%, while Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.1%.

Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.5% to 42,580.27 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 1% to 8,826.50. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.5% to 3,200.83. Taiwan's Taiex climbed 0.3% while India's BSE Sensex added 0.5%.

The Chinese markets bucked the trend, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index down 1.1% to 25,056.85. The Shanghai Composite index fell 1.3% to 3,765.88 on fears regulators will intervene amid excessive stock gains and liquidity.