U.S./China Trade Update
What’s in Today’s Report:
- U.S./China Trade Update (What’s Expected Now and What It Means for Markets)
Futures are slightly lower as disappointing economic data offset U.S./China trade optimism.
Worries about global growth persist as the Caixin Chinese Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.3 vs. (E) 49.7 while European data wasn’t much better. The British Manufacturing PMI fell to 52.8 vs. (E) 53.5 while the EU reading was 50.5.
Today focus will be on the jobs report but the ultra-dovish Fed has taken some of the impact away from this report, because it’ll have to be incredibly strong to make the Fed skew more hawkish. Expectations are: Jobs Adds of 158K, Unemployment of 3.9%, M/M Wage gains of 0.3%.
In some ways, the ISM Manufacturing Index (E: 54.0) is the more important number today because if that’s a soft number, it’ll fan fears the Fed is reacting to a U.S. economy that’s losing momentum, so that’s the number I’m watching closely today.
