Non-Farm Payrolls

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Friday, Dec. 6. Saint Nicholas Day for those who celebrate. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (2:41), followed by Stocks on the Contrarian Radar©️ featuring Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT 0.00%↑)at (6:13) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Stocks dropped yesterday with small caps seeing the worst of it as investors took a breath after a big rally on Wednesday. As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0540, things are quiet ahead of the crucial non-farm payrolls report:

• Stock index futures are flat as a board, with no major US index moving at all from its break-even point;

• Cryptos are dropping and Bitcoin has crested back below $100,000. Specifically, Bitcoin is down 4% to trade around $98,000;

• Commodities are mixed. Copper is up 1% but WTI crude oil is down 0.5% to trade below $68/barrel;

• Bonds are unchanged. The 2-year yields 4.18% with the 10-year yielding 4.20%. So the 2/10 yield curve is close to inverting again.

Today’s Known Events

First Friday of the month means non-farm payrolls, out at 0830. Economists who were surveyed expect 214,000 new jobs, a significant increase from the surprisingly soft 12,000 recorded last month. This would still raise the unemployment rate a tiny bit, to 4.2% from 4.1%.

At 1000 the University of Michigan releases its flash reading of the consumer sentiment report for December. There’s a number attached to this and even an economist survey for it: a reading of 73.1 is anticipated, which is a bit better than last month’s 71.8.