US July JOLTS job openings 7.181m vs 7.378m expectedBeige Book: Most districts reported little or no change in economic activityFed’s Waller: When the labor market turns, it usually turns fastFed’s Kashkari: Fed is not done with work to bring inflation back to 2%Fed’s Musalem: Current restrictive policy is in the right place given dataOPEC pumped more in August and could be on track to announce another boostCarney: Canada’s upcoming budget will focus on austerity as well as investmentFed’s Bostic: A single quarter-point rate cut still likely appropriate this yearUS July factory orders -1.3% vs -1.4% expectedBOE’s Bailey: Underlying driver of steeper UK yield curve is globalRepublican Senator puts his foot down on Lisa Cook sagaCanada Q2 labor productivity -1.0% vs +0.2% prior
Markets:
Gold up $30 to $3563WTI crude oil down $1.78 to $63.80GBP leads, USD lagsUS 10-year yields down 5.6 bps to 4.22%S&P 500 up 30 points to 6446
The US dollar slumped on Wednesday after a softer JOLTS report that highlighted falling job openings. Notably, the total amount of listed openings fell below the number of unemployed Americas for the first time since the pandemic. The softening in the economy was underscored by the Beige Book, where most districts reported nearly nil growth.
There were no big surprises in the Fed talk but Musalem was incrementally less hawkish. Most policymakers continue to emphasize incoming data and uncertainty about the implications of tariff inflation.
Equity markets started strong on the back of a favorable antitrust decision for Google and Apple but late in the day, the S&P 500 fell to unchanged. At the same time, gold hit a fresh record high of $3578. But the stock market bulls didn’t give up as some late buying led to a solid 0.5% gain. It was the second day in a row where we saw heavy buying late.
Oil was lower in Europe on a report that OPEC could add even more barrels on the weekend and then it chopped around in US trade before finishing near the lows.
The FX market saw a heavy wave of USD selling (particularly USD/JPY) on the JOLTS data. There was some modest follow through afterwards then some moderate USD buying late.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.