By Devik Jain

(Reuters) – U.S. Stock Index Futures edged up on Friday, ahead of a carefully watched jobs report. The index of value-linked shares in the economy is currently on track for its third straight week of gains.

At 08:30 AM, the Labor Department will release its report. ET will likely show that U.S. employment growth increased last month. This could lead to record jobs creation in 2021. Also, the unemployment rate will drop to 4.1% in 22 months from 4.2% in November.

Reuters survey of economists found that nonfarm payrolls are expected to rise by 400,000 jobs in December. This follows a November increase of 210,000.

This data is available after minutes from December’s Federal Reserve meeting indicated the central bank could have to raise interest rate sooner than they expected in the face of a tight job market and rising inflation.

Investors were prompted to trade technology-heavy shares of growth with more cyclical market segments such as financials, energy and industrials. This was in response to the hawkish tone. [US/]

“A stronger-than-expected (jobs) number might add to the impression given by the recently released minutes of the Fed’s latest meeting that rates are set to rise further and faster in the short term and provide another jolt to markets,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, wrote in a client note.

Fed funds futures suggest a 80% chance for a 25-basis points tightening at Fed’s March meeting and at least three rate rises before year end.

Shares in Occidental Petroleum (NYSE) Citigroup Premarket trading saw a rise of 1.5% (NYSE:) and 0.8% respectively. This led to gains for major banks and oil companies.

Energy sector has seen a 9% increase so far in this week’s trading. This is the best weekly performance for the past ten months. The wider value index gained 0.8% last week to outperform its growth counterpart which saw its worst week in ten months.

6.43 a.m. ET were up 36 point, or 0.1%. They were also up 10.5 point, or 0.22%. And they were up 54.75 percent, or 0.35%.

Every major Wall Street index is set to experience a weekly decline.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ): Mega-cap tech giants Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ)), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ) and Tesla (NASDAQ) Inc rose between 0.6% to 1.5%, despite some severe losses this week.

GameStop Corp (NYSE:) surged 16.9% after “meme stock”, the videogame retailer, announced it was launching a division that will develop a market for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and create cryptocurrency partnerships.

Starbucks Corp RBC’s downgrading of specialty coffee retailer’s stock from “outperform” to “sector Perform” caused the stock to fall 1.7%