U.S. stocks opened lower Friday, weighed by a slide in oil prices and following declines overseas on some disappointing data, despite an encouraging March jobs report. Dow futures briefly pared losses after the employment report, before falling more than 100 points. U.S. crude oil futures briefly fell more than 3.5 percent in early morning trade to below $37 a barrel. "It's a combination of things. Europe and Asia, Japan specifically, has been down here," said Jeremy Klein, chief market strategist at FBN Securities, noting recent weakness in the U.S. dollar index and the slide in oil as negative factors. "You're not going to have European equities down (sharply) and U.S. equities not being affected by that," he said. Japan's Nikkei 225 plunged 3.55 percent Friday after the Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" survey showed the headline index for big manufacturers' sentiment stood at plus 6 in March, missing expectations and down from plus 12 seen three months ago, according to Reuters. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 fell more than 2 percent in morning trade ET. The euro held near $1.14 and the yen was near 112 yen against the greenback ahead of the U.S. market open. The U.S. dollar index attempted slight gains after the U.S. jobs report. The index ended lower Thursday for a four-day losing streak and falling 4.1 percent in the first quarter for its worst quarter since 2010. The March employment report showed creation of 215,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate edging up to 5.0 percent and average hourly earnings rising seven cents, according to Reuters. The labor force participation rate rose to 63 percent, its highest level since March 2014. "It was good but it wasn't good enough to stop the slide in the dollar. It's not good enough to change the trend," Klein said.

Source