The trend in U.S. financial markets this week has pointed down on data that shows the U.S. economy is slowing. Certainly the disappointing numbers in both the manufacturing and services Purchasing Managers Indexes have supported that conclusion.
That could all change with the release of the September jobs numbers tomorrow, Friday, October 3. Or maybe not.
Economist estimates on the September jobs numbers started the week relatively pessimistic with economists looking for the economy to have added just 150,000 (according to Briefing.com) or 145,000 (according to Bloomberg) jobs. That would be an improvement from August’s extremely disappointing 130,000 number.
Any miss for September would just confirm the week’s trend.
But even matching or slightly exceeding forecasts might not be enough to turn sentiment. The total payroll number for September will get a boost from temporary hiring for the census. Discounting that and other government hiring, economists are projecting that private sector payrolls grew by just 130,000 in September.
If Wall Street focuses on the private payroll number–and discounts the total with its census hiring–even matching expectations may not be enough to boost sentiment tomorrow.
With the financial markets already giving almost 90% odds today to a October 30 interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve, a miss tomorrow would be most likely to show up in the odds for a fourth cut (we’ve had two so far in 2019) in December. Today, October 3, the CME Fed Watch Tool calculated 52% odds for a fourth cut from the Federal Reserve meeting on December 11. (The CME Fed Watch Tool uses prices for the Fed Funds Futures to calculate the odds of a Fed move.)
