The global economy’s state
Continues to see growth abate
As trade between nations
Has met with frustrations
While central banks try to reflate

Markets have been extremely quiet overnight as investors and traders await the release of the US payroll report at 8:30 this morning. Expectations, according to Bloomberg, are as follows:

While the GM strike has ended, it was in full swing during the survey period and explains the expected significant decline in manufacturing jobs. One other thing having a negative impact is the reduction of census workers. Given these idiosyncratic features, we must look beyond the headline number to ascertain if the employment situation remains robust, or is starting to roll over. Consider that most analysts expect that the GM strike was worth about 50K jobs and the census situation another 20K. If we add those back to the median expectation of 85K, we wind up at essentially the 3-month average of 157K. However, it is important to remember that the 1-year average is higher, 179K, which indicates that there has been an ongoing decline in new hiring for a little while now. Some of this is certainly due to the fact that, as we have heard repeatedly, finding good employees is so difficult, especially in the service industries. But certainly, the trade situation and the fact that the US economy is growing more slowly is weighing on the data as well.

The reason this is important, of course, is that the NFP report is one of the key metrics for the Fed as they try to manage monetary policy in an uncertain world. Unfortunately for them, the Unemployment Rate is backward looking data, a picture of what has been, not what is likely to be. In truth, they should be far more focused on the ISM report at 10:00. At least that has some forecasting ability.

A quick recap of this week’s central bank activity shows us that there were 3 key meetings; the Bank of Canada, who left policy unchanged but turned dovish in their statement; the FOMC, which cut rates and declared they were done cutting rates unless absolutely necessary; and the BOJ, which left policy unchanged but hinted that they, too, could be induced to easing further if things don’t pick up soon. (I can pretty much promise the BOJ that things are not going to pick up soon, certainly not inflation.) Perhaps the most interesting market response to this central bank activity was the quietest bond market rally in history, where 10-year Treasury yields are, this morning, 15bps lower than Monday’s opening. Only Canada’s 10-year outperformed that move with a 20bp decline (bond rally). Given the rate activity, it ought not be surprising that equity markets retain their bid overall. This morning, ahead of the NFP report, US futures are pointing higher and we have seen gains in Europe (FTSE, CAC, and DAX +0.33%) as well as most of Asia (Hang Seng +0.7%, Shanghai +1.0%) although the Nikkei did fall 0.3%.

And what about the dollar? Well, in truth it is doing very little this morning, with most currencies trading within a 0.20% band around yesterday’s closing levels. The one big exception has been the Norwegian krone which has rallied sharply, 0.65%, after a much better than expected Manufacturing PMI release. Interestingly, this movement has dragged the Swedish krona higher despite the fact that Sweden’s PMI disappointed, falling to 46.0. However, beyond that, there is nothing of excitement to discuss.

We hear from five Fed speakers today, starting with Vice-chairman Richard Clarida, who will be interviewed on Bloomberg TV at 9:30 this morning before speaking at 1:00 to the Japan Society. But we also hear from Dallas Fed President Richard Kaplan, Governor Randall Quarles, SF Fed President Mary Daly and NY’s John Williams before the day is out. It seems to me that the market was pretty happy with Chairman Powell’s comments and press conference on Wednesday so I expect we will see a lot of reaffirmation of the Chairman’s thoughts.

So, all in all, it is shaping up to be a pretty dull day…unless Payrolls are a big surprise. I have a funny feeling that we are going to see a much weaker number than expected based on the extremely weak Chicago PMI data and its employment sub index, as well as the fact that the Initial Claims data seems to be edging higher these days. Of course, the equity market will applaud as they will start to price in more rate cuts, but I think the dollar will suffer accordingly.

Good luck and good weekend
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