U.S. stocks were facing another choppy session on Wednesday, with investors carefully staying on the sidelines ahead of the jobs report later in the week, which could weaken or strengthen the case for a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in September.
Data on private employment out in the morning, as well as comments from a trio of Fed speakers, will also be closely watched for any rate hints.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 5 points to 18,439, while those for the S&P 500 index rose 0.05 point to 2,175.25. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 index fell 0.25 point to 4,775.75.
The muted action comes after similar small moves on Tuesday, when investors weighed comments from Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer about the timing of the next policy move. The S&P 500 closed down 0.2%, while the Dow average ended off 0.3%.
"While markets start to obsess again about Friday's jobs report, given Fed vice chair Stanley Fischer's comments yesterday, today's ADP employment report will once again be looked at as a bellwether for this number," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, in a note.
"[That's] despite the fact that there has been no correlation at all between the two reports in the last three months. While the ADP report has been broadly steady between 175k and 181k, between May and July, the Friday NFP report has been all over the map," he added.
Economic news: The ADP report is due at 8:15 a.m. Eastern Time and forecast to show the private sector added 171,500 people to payrolls in August, according to FactSet.
The data have arguably worked as a precursor for the more closely watched nonfarm-payrolls report out on Friday.
Also due Wednesday are the Chicago purchasing managers index for August, out at 9:45 a.m. Eastern Time, and a reading on pending homes sales for July, out at 10 a.m. Eastern.
In Fed news, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans both appeared at an event in Shanghai, China, and showed both sides of the Fed debate over raising interest rates.
Rosengren said the Fed is close to achieving its employment and inflation target, while Evans hinted he was in no rush to tighten policy.