Stock futures were flat Thursday morning as investors considered what the latest data suggested about the health of the broader economy.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13 points, trading near flat. S&P 500 futures were little changed, and Nasdaq-100 futures declined 0.2%.

Those moves come as investors digest new data that shows signs of a potentially weakening labor market. The ADP private payrolls report released Wednesday showed job growth slowed in March. Meanwhile, a Tuesday report showed that the number of available positions fell below 10 million in February — a first in almost two years.

Over the past several months, investors had cheered signs of economic cooling on the hope that it could push the Federal Reserve to change course on its interest rate hiking campaign. But they are now wondering if the central bank has gone too far in its bid to cool inflation, tightening the economy to the point of an economic slowdown or recession, said Rob Haworth, senior vice president and senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.

"The market is now becoming more concerned about the ensuing data as opposed to the Fed and trying to pick where the Fed is going to hit peak interest rates," Haworth said. "Plenty of the Street is thinking, 'Recession, right?' The market has to start to price for that, because that's not where we're priced, so bad news definitely has to be bad news."

Investors will watch Thursday for jobless claims data for more insights into the strength of the labor market. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard is also slated to speak in the morning in Arkansas.

Thursday will cap off a shortened trading week with the market closed for Good Friday, but investors will still closely monitor March jobs report Friday morning. The labor market has remained hot despite layoffs across tech and financial sectors, making the Fed's job to combat inflation harder.

Two-year Treasury yield falls for 5 days in a row

The two-year Treasury yield, most sensitive to monetary policy, dipped 3 basis points to 3.73% Thursday. The short-term rate has fallen for five straight sessions in a row.

The Federal Reserve is next scheduled to meet in early May, and the market is split on whether the central bank will pause or hike rates by a further 25 basis points, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

— Yun Li

Market is signaling to stay defensive, Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson says

The market is telling investors they need to take a more defensive stance as the key risks play out, Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said in a note Thursday.

"Yield curve is steepening and we think investors should position defensively with companies that have high operational efficiency and high earnings quality," Wilson wrote. "Tech is not defensive in our view; our work suggests it's higher beta and more pro-cyclical than the traditional defensive areas of the market."

Wilson's comments come as renewed concerns over the U.S. economy dampen stock market sentiment. They also come as investors await the March U.S. jobs report, which will be released Friday. The market will be closed that day due to the Good Friday holiday.

— Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

These are the countries that will be ‘most hit’ if oil prices reach $100

The surprise output cut by OPEC+ sent oil prices rallying — and analysts say major oil importers like India, Japan and South Korea will feel the most pain if prices hit $100 per barrel.

"It's a tax on every oil importing economy," said Pavel Molchanov, managing director of private investment bank Raymond James.

"It's not the U.S. that would feel the most pain from $100 oil, it would be the countries that have no domestic petroleum resources: Japan, India, Germany, France ... to name some of the big examples," Molchanov said.

Director of Eurasia Group Henning Gloystein said that the regions "most hit" by the oil supply cut and related crude price jumps are those with a high degree of import reliance and a high share of fossil fuels in their primary energy systems.

"That means the most exposed are import reliant emerging market industries, especially in South and Southeast Asia, as well as the super-import dependent heavy industries of Japan and South Korea."

— Lee Ying Shan

India holds repo rates at 6.5% in surprise move to pause

India's central bank has held its repurchase rate at 6.5%, marking the first time since April 2022, when the Reserve Bank of India started its monetary tightening cycle.

The repurchase rate, or repo rate, is the rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends money to commercial banks or financial institutions in India against government securities. 

This was expected only by a minority of economists, with only 13 out of 60 economists polled by Reuters forecasting a pause in rates. The remainder all expected a hike of 25 basis points.

The Indian rupee weakened 0.15% to 82.04 against the U.S. dollar following the announcement.

— Lim Hui Jie

China's services activity in March picks up pace on new orders

China's service sector activity continued to expand in March, according to the latest Caixin services purchasing managers' index that rose to 57.8.

The reading marks the fourth month of acceleration and above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction.

It also reached the highest reading since November 2020. The increase in activity was supported by a sustained and sharper rise in new business, Caixin said in its release.

– Jihye Lee

Gold reaches highest level since October 2020 as recession risks rise

Gold prices remained above $2,000 for a third straight day as investors see increasing risks of a recession, especially with U.S. job growth slowing.

The yellow metal traded at $2,011.54 per ounce on Thursday, after having breached the $2,000 mark on Tuesday to reach its highest level since October 2020.

— Lim Hui Jie

European markets open mixed

European markets opened mixed Thursday as investors continue to weigh up an uncertain global economic outlook.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.1% at the start of trading, with sectors a mixture of gains and losses. Mining stocks saw a 1.1% uptick, while telecom plunged into negative territory and were down 0.9%.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

European markets: Here are the opening calls

European markets are set for a mixed open, with the U.K.'s FTSE set to open 15 points higher at 7,663, and Germany's DAX up four points to 15,505, according to IG data, while France's CAC index will be up just one point to 7,311.

Italy's FTSE is set to buck the trend and drop 22 points to 26,355.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

CNBC Pro: Market veteran says we may be 'a long way from a new bull market' and shares what to buy and avoid

A strong first quarter for stocks has raised hopes of a new bull market. But David Dietze, managing principal at Peapack Private Wealth Management, says that could be wrong and inflation is still the biggest headwind.

He added that investors should remain invested in the stock market.

Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Zavier Ong

CNBC Pro: The banking panic has created this pocket of opportunity with yields nearing 8%, according to analysts

Recent banking turmoil in the U.S. and Europe has been a source of panic, but analysts are pointing to a pocket of opportunity.

Investors can enjoy high yields in this type of investment, some are at highs and hovering at nearly 8%.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

Costco shares slide as March sales take a hit from lower gas prices, drop in e-commerce

Costco shares dropped 2% in extended trading after the retailer reported that same-store sales fell 1.1% in March, hurt by a decline in online spending and lower gas prices.

Declines were see in both of its major markets, with U.S. same-store sales slipping 1.5% in the five weeks ended April 2, from the same period a year ago. In Canada, the closely watched metric fell 2.4%. The retailer's international markets outside Canada fared better, posting a year-over-year increase of 2%.

But e-commerce sales took a large hit, dropping 12.7% from March 2022.

Sales also were hurt by declining gasoline prices and foreign exchange. Excluding the impact from those two variables, comparable-store sales rose 2.6% across all markets. On that basis, U.S. same-store sales rose 0.9%, Canadian sales climbed 7.4%, and other international markets added 7.6% versus the prior year.

— Alex Harring

Jobs are in focus as a holiday-shortened week winds down

The labor market is top of mind for investors, with March's payrolls report coming on Friday.

Though the stock market is closed on Good Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will be issuing its jobs report that day, along with the unemployment rate and the latest wage data.

Economists polled by Dow Jones are calling for an increase of 238,000 payrolls in March, compared to February's hotter-than-expected rise of 311,000. They anticipate that the unemployment rate held steady at 3.6%.

Economists also predict that average hourly wages gained 0.3% from the prior month and grew 4.3% over the past 12 months.

The March payrolls report would be the latest in a series of labor market updates released this week. The data seems to be suggesting that hiring is slowing and possibly responding to the policy tightening measures from the Federal Reserve.

The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that available positions dropped to 9.93 million in February – marking the first time in nearly two years that job openings have fallen below 10 million. ADP's private payrolls report for March also showed hiring increased by 145,000, coming in far below economists' forecasts for an increase of 210,000.

-Darla Mercado

Richardson Electronics falls as backlog shrinks

Richardson Electronics lost 1.9% in extended trading after reporting that its backlog was smaller than a year ago.

The company posted a backlog valued at $175.1 million in its third fiscal quarter. That's less than the $175.6-million backlog seen in the same quarter a year prior.

Elsewhere, the company's earnings were better than expected. Per-share earnings came in at 44 cents for the quarter, six cents ahead of what the one analyst polled by FactSet expected. And revenue came in at $70.4 million against the $70.2 million anticipated.

— Alex Harring

Stock rally is led by a very narrow part of of the market, strategist says

Meghan Shue, Wilmington Trust's head of investment, said the market comeback has been led by megacap stocks, while cyclical names have been lagging, which underscored concerns about the economy and slowing growth.

"You're seeing the large cap stocks do very well because they're being led by a very, very narrow part of the market," Shue said on CNBC's "Closing Bell Overtime." "Whereas small cap ... it is definitely been underperforming and we think is probably a little bit more representative of what the market should be thinking about in terms of growth prospects for this year."

Shares of Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet have all rallied more than 11% in the past month, while the Russell 2000 is down more than 9%.

— Yun Li

Stock futures are little changed

The three major future indexes were all just slightly below the flatline as extended trading kicked off.

Futures tied to the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were all down just 0.1%.

— Alex Harring