Wall Street investors are back from a long weekend Monday and facing the potential consequences of last Friday’s downbeat jobs report.
The government’s latest employment report showed U.S. payrolls grew by 120,000 in March, far below the expected gain of 203,000 jobs for the smallest rise since October, keeping the door open for the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary support to the fragile economy.
A sharp slowdown in U.S. jobs growth raised concerns about the strength of the world's largest economy, prompting investors to curb risk exposure ahead of more U.S. data and earnings this week.
Stock prices are set to slump at the start of trading.
For more clues about the economy, U.S. markets will focus on the earnings season, with earnings likely rising 3.2 percent for the first quarter. But that figure dwindles to 1.8 percent on the year when excluding Apple, the world's biggest company by market value.
Reuters contributed to this report.
