Euro Fears Weigh on Futures Despite Strong Data

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A round of strong data on the labor market failed to ease concerns over Europe's debt and banking debacle, leaving stock-index futures stuck to the downside.

Today's Markets

As of 9:20 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 51 points to 12305, S&P 500 futures dipped 6.8 points to 1266 and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 7.3 points to 2322.

Resurfacing anxiety over twin debt and banking crises in Europe were weighing heavily on sentiment despite a round of strong data on the U.S. economy.

Central to the worries have been the painful borrowing costs numerous major euro zone countries have had to pay on the private markets. Italy, the bloc's third-biggest economy, has been in the spotlight because it needs to finance billions of euros in debt this year, but is being forced to pay what many analysts see as unsustainable yields.

The country's benchmark 10-year note recently yielded 7.02%, while investors demanded a 5.12-percentage point premium to purchase the country's paper over the safe-haven German bund. The rising yields are an indication that bond prices are falling, which has, in turn, weighed on European banks' balance sheets that are heavy on sovereign debt.

In a sign of how the debt crisis is hitting banks, Italy's biggest lender lender, UniCredit, has seen its shares plunge 24% over the past two sessions as it had to discount a rights offering to drum up demand.

"It's almost the 2008 banking crisis all over again," said Manoj Ladwa, a senior trader at ETX Capital in London, referring to the events that took place following the collapse of investment-banking titan Lehman Brothers that year, sparking a debacle that put the world's financial system in peril.

The euro fell below the $1.28 mark for the first time since September 2010 before recovering, data compiled by FOX Business show. The common currency recently dropped 0.82% to $1.2838, while European blue chips fell 1.4%.

Wall Street got a fresh read on the labor market on Thursday ahead of the closely-watched monthly employment report from the Labor Department on Friday. The reports showed continuing expansion in the jobs market as the U.S. economy recovers.

The private sector tacked on 325,000 jobs in December, according to payroll-processing company ADP, the most since the survey began in 2001. Economists expected a much smaller increase of 178,000 jobs.

Planned layoffs at U.S. companies fell 1.6% to 41,785 in December from November, the lowest monthly total since June, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The report also noted that 41% of all announced job cuts last year were in the financial and government sectors.

Meanwhile, new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to 372,000 from an upwardly revised 387,000 the week prior. Economists were expecting a drop to 375,000 from an initial reading of 381,000.

Energy markets were to the downside ahead of the weekly inventory report from the Energy Department. The benchmark crude oil contract traded in New York fell 37 cents, or 0.36%, to $102.86 a barrel. Wholesale RBOB gasoline prices fell 0.52% to $2.771 a gallon.

Gold prices fell $1.30, or 0.09%, to $1,611 a troy ounce.

Foreign Markets

European blue chips fell 1.1%, the English FTSE 100 dipped 0.47% to 5,642 and the German DAX fell 0.6% to 6,075.

In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 slid 0.83% to 8,489 and the Chinese Hang Seng rose 0.46% to 18,813.