- US July JOLTS job openings 7.181m vs 7.378m expected
- Beige Book: Most districts reported little or no change in economic activity
- Fed's Waller: When the labor market turns, it usually turns fast
- Fed's Kashkari: Fed is not done with work to bring inflation back to 2%
- Fed's Musalem: Current restrictive policy is in the right place given data
- OPEC pumped more in August and could be on track to announce another boost
- Carney: Canada's upcoming budget will focus on austerity as well as investment
- Fed's Bostic: A single quarter-point rate cut still likely appropriate this year
- US July factory orders -1.3% vs -1.4% expected
- BOE's Bailey: Underlying driver of steeper UK yield curve is global
- Republican Senator puts his foot down on Lisa Cook saga
- Canada Q2 labor productivity -1.0% vs +0.2% prior
Markets:
- Gold up $30 to $3563
- WTI crude oil down $1.78 to $63.80
- GBP leads, USD lags
- US 10-year yields down 5.6 bps to 4.22%
- S&P 500 up 30 points to 6446
The US dollar slumped on Wednesday after a softer JOLTS report that highlighted falling job openings. Notably, the total amount of listed openings fell below the number of unemployed Americas for the first time since the pandemic. The softening in the economy was underscored by the Beige Book, where most districts reported nearly nil growth.
There were no big surprises in the Fed talk but Musalem was incrementally less hawkish. Most policymakers continue to emphasize incoming data and uncertainty about the implications of tariff inflation.
Equity markets started strong on the back of a favorable antitrust decision for Google and Apple but late in the day, the S&P 500 fell to unchanged. At the same time, gold hit a fresh record high of $3578. But the stock market bulls didn't give up as some late buying led to a solid 0.5% gain. It was the second day in a row where we saw heavy buying late.
Oil was lower in Europe on a report that OPEC could add even more barrels on the weekend and then it chopped around in US trade before finishing near the lows.
The FX market saw a heavy wave of USD selling (particularly USD/JPY) on the JOLTS data. There was some modest follow through afterwards then some moderate USD buying late.
