Closed yesterday for ‘Independence Day’, Wall Street is slightly up in pre-session trading. While global stocks are at their highest ever (MSCI world), the monthly employment figures in the United States (2:30 p.m.) should dictate the end-of-week trend. The world’s largest economy should have created 190,000 non-farm jobs in June, compared to 272,000 the previous month, while the unemployment rate is expected to remain stable at 4%, according to ‘Bloomberg’ estimates. Average hourly wage growth is expected at +0.3% sequentially compared to +0.4% previously.
Investors are pricing in a slowdown in the labor market last month as a slew of economic data released Wednesday revived hopes for a September Fed rate cut. The probability of a September Fed rate cut of at least 25 basis points now exceeds 72%, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
“Given other evidence of a cooling economic backdrop – notably weaker ISM manufacturing and ISM services PMI reports – the jobs report could be increasingly pivotal for the Fed as it looks for a reason to signal rate easing,” Quincy Krosby, chief strategy officer at LPL Financial, told Bloomberg.
Not much to report on the stock market side. Tesla is still progressing pre-market and could thus sign an eighth consecutive session in the green. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is down by more than 6% to $53,940, its lowest since the end of February. All cryptocurrencies are falling against the backdrop of the drop in demand for Bitcoin ETFs and signs indicating that the distribution of Bitcoins to the creditors of Mt. Gox, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange before its demise in 2014, has begun. In total, the entire digital currency market has lost more than $170 billion in combined capitalization over the last 24 hours, according to data from ‘CoinGecko’.
The euro/dollar parity reaches $1.0827. A barrel of Brent is trading at $87.3. An ounce of gold is trading at $2,366.
Values
* Tesla. The American brand’s best-selling Model Y has been included by local authorities in China on a list of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles as models eligible for government procurement, Chinese state media outlet ‘The Paper’ reported. This is the first time that Tesla vehicles can be purchased by the government in China. In addition, environmental authorities in the German state of Brandenburg, where Tesla has built a gigafactory, have approved the group’s application to expand its Gruenheide plant, removing a hurdle in its growth plans.
* Macy’s soars premarket as Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management raised their offer for the department store chain to about $6.9 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. The new proposal would buy the Macy’s shares that Arkhouse and Brigade Capital do not already own for $24.80 each, up from $24 offered in March, the report said. Arkhouse, which owns 4.4 percent of Macy’s, had previously raised its offer to $24 from $21 a share. The current offer represents a premium of about 43 percent to Macy’s closing price on Dec. 8, when negotiations began.
