Dow went up 58, advancers over decliners 3-2 & NAZ declined 125, The MLP index was up 1+ to the 189s & the REIT index dropped 7+ to the 499s. Junk bond funds fluctuated & Treasuries had limited buying after a strong rise in the first 2 days of 2022. Oil rose 1+ to the 78s & gold gained 10 to 1824.
AMJ (Alerian MLP index tracking fund)
|
|
US companies hired employees at the fastest pace in 7 months in
Dec, before a surge in the new omicron coronavirus variant cast a
fresh threat over the economic recovery, according to the ADP National
Employment Report. Companies added 807K jobs last month, blowing past the 400K-job gain that had been predicted & the revised 505K positions added by
companies in Nov. It marked the best month for private payroll
growth since May, when employers added 882K jobs. Job
gains were broad-based across sectors. Service-providing industries
added 669K new jobs last month, with the largest increases in leisure & hospitality (246K), trade, transportation & utilities
(138K), professional & business services (130K) & education & health services (85K). Goods-producing industries, meanwhile, saw
payrolls grow by 138K, with the bulk of the gains in manufacturing
(74K) & construction (62K). In all, US companies saw an average monthly job gain of 625K in
the final 3 months of the year, surpassing the 514K average for
the year. Job gains in 2021 eclipsed 6M, but private-sector
payrolls remain nearly 4M jobs short of pre-pandemic levels. Still,
the report only includes data from the first ½ of the month, before a
stunning rise in cases driven by the highly transmissible omicron
variant. The US is now reporting a 7-day moving average of more
than 122K cases.
Private-sector job growth blows past expectations in December, ADP says
In a matter of weeks, the Covid-19 omicron variant
— first detected in South Africa & Botswana in Nov — has surged
around the world, leading to Ms of new cases & the reimposition
of coronavirus restrictions in many countries. The US & Europe have been rolling out booster shots as fast as they can following research findings that the omicron variant undermines the effectiveness of the standard 2 doses of Covid shots, but that booster shots significantly increase the level of protection against the strain. Nonetheless, cases in both regions have soared, with the US reporting more than 1M new daily Covid cases on Mon & the UK & France also among those reporting staggering numbers
of daily infections, upward of 200K a day in recent tallies. Hospitalizations are also steadily rising in affected countries,
although admissions & deaths remain far below previous peaks. As well as an increasing body of evidence
suggesting that omicron causes less serious disease than its
predecessors, experts are cautiously optimistic that while the omicron
wave is proving to be sharper than those associated with previous
variants, it could also be shorter. South Africa believes its
omicron wave has peaked, for example, & London — where omicron cases
surged in Dec before the variant really took hold in the rest of
Europe — may be seeing cases starting to plateau, according to experts,
fueling hope that the wave could soon peak elsewhere, too. South Africa's gov issued a statement on Dec 30
in which it said that the country's Dept of Health had reported a
29.7% decrease in the number of new cases detected in the week ended
Dec 25 (89K cases), compared with the number of new cases detected
in the previous week (127K).
Omicron seems to have peaked or plateaued in some regions, experts say
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield traded along the flatline today, with minutes from the Federal Reserve's Dec policy meeting due out later in the day. The 10-year hovered around 1.65% & the 30-year bond yield dipped slightly to trade at 2.062%. The 2-year rate, meanwhile, ticked higher by 1 basis point to around 0.78%. Yields move inversely to prices & 1 basis point equals 0.01%. Yields rose at their fastest new year pace in 20 years to start 2022. The 10-year yield hit 1.71% yesterday, having ended 2021 at 1.51% on Fri. Investors are poring over the minutes from the Fed's Dec meeting, which will be released in the PM. The Fed announced following the meeting that it would be speeding up the reduction of its monthly bond purchases. Fed officials also indicated that they foresaw as many as 3 interest hikes coming in 2022.
10-year yield is flat as investors await Fed meeting minutes
Good news from the jobs report is getting less attention than usual. There is more interest in what was said about the future for interest rates at the Fed meeting in Dec. The REIT index (above) shows REIT's are being sold based on worries about higher interest rates. On the virus front, there is hope that omicron will be less disruptive to the global economy than the previous versions.
Dow Jones Industrials
No comments:
Post a Comment