Non-Farm Payrolls, Powell Speech

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Friday, March 7. Jobs Day.

State of Play

Stocks dropped yesterday with the Nasdaq closing in correction territory (10% from highs). It’s hard to say exactly what caused the sell-off as the Trump administration spent most of the afternoon signaling that it was dialing back tariffs.

As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0540, there is not an awful lot to by as we await non-farm payrolls:

• Stock index futures are showing a few signs of life at this early hour. The Nasdaq is up 0.5%. S&P 500 right behind it +0.3%;

• Cryptos are dropping however. Bitcoin is down 2.5% to trade around $89,000;

• Commodities are mixed. WTI crude oil is up 1.5% to trade north of $67/barrel. Copper is down 0.8%;

• Bonds aren’t doing anything. The 10-year yields 4.27%.

Today’s Known Events

Non-farm payrolls are out at 0830. The numbers we’re looking for:

• Headline payrolls of 159k, a small increase over the 143k reported last month;

• This would leave the unemployment rate at an even 4%;

• Private payrolls (are there any others in the age of DOGE?) are expected to come in at 142k, an increase over the 111k reported last month;

• Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.3% month-over-month after a 0.5% increase last month.

We separately have a speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at 1230 at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. This will be broadcast live over Zoom, which is apparently open to the public.

Jerome Powell examines payrolls ledger, by author via OpenArt SDXL AI