Stocks Mixed Ahead of Non-Farms
US markets took a bit of a breather yesterday as the Fed’s favoured inflation indicator came in largely on expectation with investors now looking ahead to today’s jobs numbers. The Dow dropped 0.48%, the S&P lost 0.16% and the Nasdaq gained 0.11% on the day. US Treasury yields continued to ease off with the benchmark 10-year now around 4.09%, however, the dollar gained ground again after the data to record a monthly increase of 1.7% for the DXY. Gold drifted lower on the back of the stronger dollar and Oil jumped nearly $2/b after Russia announced it would extend production cuts.
Crucial Non-Farms Data Today
Once again it is the first Friday of the month and investors are preparing for another busy end to the week on the latest announcement of non-farm data and employment figures. Market expectation is for a drop in the number of jobs added to 169,000 and for the unemployment rate to remain steady at 3.5%. We have already seen 3 job number releases in the US this week and the numbers have been skewed to the downside however, seasoned traders will always look to the non-farms as the most influential and tonight’s data release could have a more significant impact on the market. Any surprise to the topside will probably have a greater impact given the moves in the market this week and a lower print will enable this week’s overall trend to continue and provide further relief for risk trades.
Another Big US Data Day Ahead
It will be all eyes on the US session again today as the major US jobs numbers are released, however, there are some other data releases that investors will have to negotiate before the big event. We have already seen another strong result out of China today in the form of the Caixin Manufacturing PMI number and once the European session begins, investor focus will switch to Switzerland and the latest release of their CPI data. However, the real market-moving releases are in the US session with the Non-Farm Employment Change, the unemployment rate and Average hourly earnings data all due early in the session followed by the ISM Manufacturing PMI number a couple of hours later.
