Why investors are on edge ahead of Friday’s jobs report
CNN
Wall Street is eyeing what could be the most consequential economic data report in months due out Friday.
Wall Street is eyeing what could be the most consequential economic data report in months due out Friday. Inflation has cooled significantly since the Federal Reserve began aggressively hiking interest rates more than two years ago to tame it. That’s led the central bank to shift its focus to the other side of its dual-mandate: maximizing employment. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month that “the time has come for policy to adjust,” all but cementing a rate cut in September. Now, it’s just a question of whether the central bank will ease rates by a quarter- or half-point later this month. Friday’s jobs data will be critical in that determination. At the same time, Wall Street is looking for signs that the job market is cooling steadily, rather than plummeting into conditions for a recession. Economists project that US employers added 160,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% in August, according to FactSet consensus estimates. Preliminary data has shown that the job market is continuing to cool. Payroll processor ADP reported Thursday that hiring cooled more than expected in the US private sector, with businesses adding just 99,000 jobs last month. “We’re in a ‘good news is good, and bad news is bad’ environment, and markets are still trying to figure out if the economy is slowing too much, and whether the Fed is behind the curve,” wrote Christopher Larkin, managing director of Morgan Stanley’s digital brokerage product E*Trade, in a Thursday note.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Chili’s is on fire.
The DeepSeek drama may have been briefly eclipsed by, you know, everything in Washington (which, if you can believe it, got even crazier Wednesday). But rest assured that over in Silicon Valley, there has been nonstop, Olympic-level pearl-clutching over this Chinese upstart that managed to singlehandedly wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap in just a few hours and put America’s mighty tech titans on their heels.
The Federal Reserve kicked off its second Trump era right where it left off: Doing exactly what it wanted to do, ignoring President Donald Trump’s demands that it lower rates.
Tesla posted a rare earnings miss for the last quarter of 2024, coupled with disappointing results amid weak sales and revenue leading to thinning profit margins.
Consumers and traders are waiting to learn if the Fed’s expected pause today is a one-meeting hold or the start of a longer stretch.
Elon Musk used his new government efficiency role to stop by the operations of his competitor Boeing to look into the long-delayed efforts to renovate two 747 jets into the next generation of Air Force One jets, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said Tuesday.
Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group announced Wednesday it plans to expand into financial services and potentially buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Save the Music, the nonprofit foundation that grew in popularity on cable TV through in the late 1990s through the 2000s, is going indie.
Frontier Airlines is making another offer to merge with bankrupt Spirit Airlines, less than two years after a previous plan fell through.
Starbucks is set to eliminate a significant number of drinks and food options in the coming months as part of the company’s plan to simplify its offerings, reduce wait times and improve its customer experience.
Silicon Valley is coming to grips this week with the realization that creating an advanced artificial intelligence model may no longer be as specialized a task as was once believed.
Trump’s grant gambit threatens to wreck the goldilocks economy he inherited
In its first key decision of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hit pause on rate cuts Wednesday.
Incidents damaging Europe’s undersea networks have become more frequent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, raising suspicions they are the result of sabotage.
Taiwan’s government will soon look at whether it needs to help its domestic industry over threats by President Donald Trump to put tariffs on semiconductors, Premier Cho Jung-tai said on Wednesday.
Karoline Leavitt’s first White House press briefing reaffirmed a truism about the Trump White House: His aides perform for an “audience of one.”
At her first White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made an unusual claim about inflation that has stung American shoppers for years: Leavitt said egg prices have continued to surge because “the Biden administration and the department of agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”
Coffee prices hit a new high Monday, the day after President Donald Trump threatened – and then reversed course on – a 25% tariff on Colombia, during a spat about deportation flights from the US.