A two-year string of job losses appears to be near an end, if it hasn’t ended already.

Investors were on edge Friday as they awaited a key reading of the nation’s economy, the December employment report.

Global stocks advanced on Friday, anticipating an improvement in all-important U.S. monthly jobs data, while the dollar fell from a four-month high against the yen after Japan’s new finance minister backed off his call for a weaker currency.

Swiss unemployment reached its highest point in over a decade last month, although compared to most other countries things are still looking good.

The economic output of China’s capital city probably topped $10,000 per person in 2009, reflecting the country’s explosive growth despite the global financial crisis, state media said Friday.

Oil prices hovered below $83 a barrel Friday in Asia as investors look to a key U.S. jobs report later in the day for clues about the strength of the economic recovery.

World stocks advanced Friday ahead of a critical U.S. jobs report, with Asian markets buoyed after upbeat holiday sales figures raised hopes for recovering American demand.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.1 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.04 percent at 4.10 a.m.

Two blocks from the Treasury, where the government not long ago scrambled to save a collapsing financial system, a team of investigators armed with subpoena powers is preparing the official narrative of the crisis and what went wrong.

A government report Thursday on claims for unemployment aid signaled that layoffs are easing and that the economy could be on the verge of posting the first monthly gain in jobs in two years.