Friday will bring nonfarm payroll data from the US - Goldman Sachs preview

Goldman Sachs were very close to the money indeed for jobless claims.

I posted yesterday:

• US Jobless claims data due Thursday - Goldman Sachs forecasts 5.25m

And then, prior to the data they boosted their forecast:

• Goldman Sachs raises US weekly initial jobless claims forecast to 6 million, from 5.25 million previously

Note that this NFP report is unlikely to be instructive, the survey was mainly before the big impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy. Over to GS' comments:

• estimate for nonfarm payrolls is a decline of 180k in March
• unemployment rate up 0.3 to 3.8% … risks skewed towards a larger increase
• the March employment numbers are already fairly stale and insignificant in our view, because the April report will likely show job losses in the millions.