As of Sat, Jun 8th, Singapore Time zone UTC+8
Dollar Index -0.52%, 96.54
USDJPY, -0.21%, $108.19
EURUSD, +0.48%, $1.1333
GBPUSD, +0.32%, $1.2736
USDCAD, -0.66%, $1.3268
AUDUSD, +0.30%, $0.6999
NZDUSD, +0.67%, $0.6666
U.S.Employment Situation Report for May showed nonfarm payrolls increase by just 75,000 (consensus 180,000) and average hourly earnings increase 0.2% (consensus 0.3%). Year-over-year, average hourly earnings were up 3.1% versus 3.2% in April. The market is hoping the data-dependent Fed will consider the soft job creation and soft wage-based inflation in its upcoming meetings as a case to lower the fed funds rate. Aside from the bullish disposition in equities, the fed funds futures market and Treasury market have been flashing strong expectations for at least one rate cut this year.
The fed funds futures market currently sees an 85.6% implied likelihood of a rate cut at the July 30-31 FOMC meeting. On Friday, the 2-yr yield declined five basis points to 1.84%, and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 2.08%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.52% to 96.54. WTI crude rose 2.4% to $53.92/bbl.
In Trade, Trump backed off his plan to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods and announced via Twitter on Friday night that the United States had reached an agreement with Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the southwestern border. According to a United States-Mexico Joint Declaration distributed late Friday, Mexico agreed to “take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration,” including the deployment of its national guard throughout the country to stop migrants from reaching the United States. But the declaration by the two countries included an ominous warning, as well, stating that if Mexico’s actions “do not have the expected results,” additional measures could be taken. The declaration said the two countries would continue talking about other steps that could be announced within 90 days.
S&P500, +1.05%, 2,873.34
Nasdaq, +1.94%, 7,417.29
Nikkei Futures, +0.87%, 20,920.0
S&P 500 advanced 1.05% on Friday, and 4.4% for the week, after soft employment data for May increased expectations for the Fed to cut rates this year. Leadership from some of the stock market’s biggest names set the pace. This optimism contributed to big gains in Facebook (FB 173.35, +5.02, +3.0%), Apple (AAPL 190.15, +4.93, +2.7%), Amazon (AMZN 1804.03, +49.67, +2.8%), Alphabet (GOOG 1066.04, +21.70, +2.1%), and Microsoft (MSFT 131.40, +3.58, +2.8%). In turn, their outperformance contributed to the leadership from the S&P 500 information technology (+1.9%), consumer discretionary (+1.6%), and communication services (+1.5%) sectors. The financials (-0.2%) and utilities (-0.7%) sectors, however, were left out of the rally.
In earnings news, shares of Beyond Meat (BYND 138.65, +39.15) shot up 39.4% on positive results and guidance. Zoom Video Communications (ZM 94.05, +14.62) posted a humbler, but still impressive, gain of 18.4% after it also pleased investors with its earnings results and guidance.