ADP Payrolls Shed First Look at March Employment

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, April 5.

State of Play

As of 0630 all is pretty quiet:

• Stock futures are down a bit, with major US indexes all pointing to a loss of about 0.2% at the open;

• Bonds are selling off a tiny bit a day after a big rally. The 2-year yield is up 4 basis points to 3.87%. Yesterday morning we were at 4%. The 10-year is up 2bps to 3.36%;

• Commodities are flat. WTI crude oil is changing hands around $80/barrel. Copper is unchanged.

Economic Data

ADP Nonfarm Employment is out at 0815. This is seen as the prequel to nonfarm payrolls on Friday, but the two figures often differ quite wildly. For this reason the ADP number is not followed very closely by investors. But this month it is worth paying attention to because it’s our first datapoint for March and thus the first one to include the impact of the bank failures. Economists expect 200,000 new jobs, down from the 242,000 seen last month.