Wall Street equity futures were lower on Friday ahead of the critical payrolls report, a day after U.S. stocks suffered their worst sell off since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009.

* The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fears the United States was staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis would swallow two of its largest economies.

* Investors braced for the key U.S. monthly non-farm payrolls as well as the unemployment rate, due at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT), seeking more insight on the extent of the weakness in the economy following a string of dismal macroeconomic data.

* Economists see payrolls up by 85,000, according to a Reuters survey, after a tepid 18,000 gain in June. The unemployment rate was expected to hold steady at 9.2 percent.

* S&P 500 futures fell 3.9 points and were slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures lost 45 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures shed 9 points.

* The S&P 500's drop on Thursday put the benchmark index more than 10 percent below its April 29 high into a correction.

* Bank of America Corp was down 1.5 percent to $8.70 in premarket trade. The big U.S. bank said legal losses could cost another $2.3 billion to cover litigation tied to state and federal probes into home foreclosures and investor lawsuits over soured securities.

* Procter & Gamble Co fell 0.4 percent to $59.33 after the personal care products maker reported higher quarterly earnings.

* European shares fell 1.4 percent and hit 14-month lows on concerns about the pace of global economic recovery.

* Investors in Asia slashed positions in equities and commodities and scrambled for the safety of cash and government bonds. Some Asian stock markets fell by more than 5 percent.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)