Sellers Continue to Weigh on ES, NQ

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Our View

The stock market is always waiting on something, and this week it’s the August jobs report. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 818k fewer jobs than previously reported between March 2023 and March 2024, the upcoming jobs report could be seen as pivotal. 

Helping the idea of a September rate cut have been the bonds, which made one-year highs on August 5th and remain about 1% below those levels now. 

I think we live in two different worlds when it comes to the stock market: The people who love it and the people who love to hate it. I think the buyers are on the optimistic side, while the bears find doubt in everything from the rate cuts to the price of gold; they want the markets down and down hard. 

Tuesday's weak ISM numbers, followed by the JOLTs number yesterday —  which showed job openings fell in August to 7.7 million from a downwardly revised 7.9 million in July — pushed the yield on the 10-year note below 3.8%. As I have said many times... everything is moving!

Here is what the end-of-the-week data looks like:

Thursday:

• The ADP job report is due at 8:15 a.m., and weekly jobless claims follow at 8:30 a.m.

• U.S. service-sector PMIs from S&P and ISM are due at 9:45 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., respectively.

Friday:

• New York Fed President John Williams speaks at 8:45 a.m. Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks on the economic outlook at 11:00 a.m.

• Nonfarm payrolls for August are due at 8:30 a.m. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal forecast that 161,000 jobs were created, more than in July, and that the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.2%.