Dow dropped 503, decliners over advancers better than 3-1& NAZ sank a huge 502. The MLP index slid 2+ to the 119s & the REIT index was down 6+ to the 354s. Junk bond funds barely budged in price & Treasuries were in strong demand. Oil fell 1+ to 40 & gold gave back 12 to 1925.
| CL=F | Crude Oil | 40.49 | -0.88 | -2.1% |
| GC=F | Gold | 1,928.50 | -9.30 | -0.5% |
The US economy added 1.4M jobs in Aug as the unemployment rate unexpectedly tumbled, indicating the nation's labor market is continuing a slow but steady recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The Labor Dept's payroll report showed the jobless rate fell sharply to 8.4%, down from 10.2% in Jun & a peak of 14.7% in Apr. It marks the first time since Mar that unemployment has been below 10%. The forecast expected to show that unemployment dropped to 9.8% & the economy added 1.4M jobs. It's well below the combined 7.5M jobs added in May & Jun before hiring cooled in Jul, with growth of just 1.9M positions. But joblessness remains historically high. The unemployment rate sat at 3.5% in Feb, a ½-century low, before the crisis began. Gov hiring helped boost the figure, with employment increasing by 344K in Aug -- accounting for ¼ of the total gains. The increase stemmed largely from the federal gov's addition of 238K temporary Census workers. Despite fears about budget shortfalls, local govs hired 95K employees last month. Other notable gains came from retail, which added 249K new jobs, & professional & business services, which brought on 197K workers. Leisure & hospitality, the hardest-hit sector during the pandemic, filled 174K positions, a majority of which stemmed from bars & restaurants. Education & health services jobs jumped by 147K & transportation rose by 78K. Financial activities increased 36K, manufacturing rose by 29K & wholesale trade was up by 14K. The number of Americans on furlough also plunged: 24.2M people who said they not working because their employer either closed or lost business as a result of COVID-19, down from 31.3M in Jul. Over the past 4 months, the economy has added back about ½ of the 22M jobs it lost during the pandemic. There are still 11.5M more out-of-work Americans than in Feb.
How many jobs US employers added in August as unemployment rate drops
The Trump administration & Congress have agreed
to pass a bill to avoid a gov shutdown without tying funding to
separate measures such as coronavirus relief, VP Mike Pence said. Approving
a continuing resolution, which would temporarily set federal
spending at current levels, would not inject the heated politics of
pandemic aid into efforts to keep the gov running. “Now,
we can focus just on another relief bill, and we’re continuing to do
that in good faith,” he said. Gov
funding will lapse if Congress does not pass legislation before the end
of the month. Speculation had grown that congressional leaders could
try to include coronavirus relief measures in a spending package as a
way to gain leverage in stimulus negotiations that have barely moved
forward since they fell apart last month. Pence's comments indicated the stalemate over how much money
to put into boosting the economy could linger. Dems have pushed the
Trump administration to increase the price tag on their stimulus offer
to at least $2.2T from about $1.3T. The White House has
not yet budged. Pence criticized Dems over perhaps the
largest remaining sticking point in talks. Dem leaders want more
than $900B in new aid to cash-crunched state & local
govs, while the Trump administration has offered $150B. “We’re
not going to allow Democrats in Congress to use a coronavirus relief
bill to bail out poorly run Democratic states,” the VP
said.
Pence says Congress will move to avoid shutdown without coronavirus aid
The global tally for confirmed cases of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 climbed above 26.3M, according to Johns Hopkins University,
while the death toll rose to 869K. At least 17.5M people have
recovered. The US has the highest tallies in the world with 6.2M cases & 187K deaths. The virus is spreading fast at US
colleges, which have counted more than 51K cases during the pandemic.
Brazil is 2nd to the US with 4M cases & 124K deaths.
Brazil is followed in case numbers by India, Russia & Peru. By death
toll, it is followed by India, Mexico & the UK.
Global cases of COVID-19 top 26.3 million, 869,076 deaths and U.S. colleges count more than 51,000 cases
The jobs report was mixed which is weighing on the stock market. The data is going in the right direction but improvement is measured by smaller steps. NAZ with the tech stocks has been the darling of investors. Now a correction is in place. 2 Dow stocks have fared differently since Wed. Caterpillar (CAT) has not seen much selling while sexy Apple (AAPL) has fallen 16 (12%). More selling lies ahead, especially for tech stocks which got ahead of their earnings in an uncertain economy.
No comments:
Post a Comment