The Day Ahead: Stocks Extend Rally Before Key Labor Data
Stock futures ticked higher overnight and look to extend the broad rally which pushed the S&P 2.58% higher yesterday.
Ninety minutes before the opening bell, Dow futures are up 29 points to 10,261 and S&P 500 futures are up 3.75 points to 1,100.75. The 2-year Treasury note yield is 2.8 basis points higher at 0.845% while the benchmark 10-year Treasury noteyield is up 4.6 basis points at 3.395%.
NYMEX crude oil futures are up 0.40 to $73.26 per barrel, but Gold futures are down 4.40 to $1,216.20.
Global markets are also sharply higher, including a 3.24% gain in Japan’s Nikkei 225 and a 2.21% climb in France’s CAC 40. Most other markets are up more between 1% and 2%. China’s Shanghai index is the outlier, trading lower by 0.73%.
The broad inclines occurred despite the overnight news that Euro-zone retail sales fell 1.5% in April, compared to last year, well below economists’ expectations of -0.1%.
Offsetting that decline was a large revision to March sales, which was pushed up from -0.1% to +1.3%. On a monthly basis, sales fell 1.2% in April, against expectations of a slight increase.
Key Events Today:
7:30 ― Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed, speaks to the economic outlook at the Atlanta Technical College Business & Industry breakfast.
8:15 ― The ADP Employment Report tries to be the number one tool in predicting changes in the nonfarm payrolls employment report, but during the recession it has not been too helpful. Economists at TD Securities noted last month that the survey has been off “by a whopping 100k,” on average, for the past five months. Still, the broader trend tends to be on track with payrolls and economists sometimes revise their payroll estimates based on its results. No predictions are available for the May survey, but in April the index suggested 32k private jobs were created in April.
8:30 ― After months of watching Initial Jobless Claims steadily fall, the index then stalled from March to May, with weekly claims ranging from 442k to 480k. The four-week average is currently 457k, suggesting little or no growth in the labor markets, where in March it was 448k. For the final week of May, economists hope to see a 450k level, but there are no guarantees.
“Although the business sector has started to create new jobs on a net basis, initial claims have remained in the range of 440k-480k since February,” said economists at Nomura. “We expect the erratic but gradual downward trend in claims to continue.”
8:30 ― Revisions to the first-quarter Productivity & Costs report are expected to pull down productivity from +3.6% to +3.4%, while unit labor costs are anticipated to change from -1.6% to -1.3%. The changes should be in line with GDP revisions which downgraded growth by two-tenths to 3.0%, but whatever the exact numbers, the trend is broadly the same ― productivity has been rebounding while labor costs continue to be slashed.
10:00 ― The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index has been at a four-year high of 55.4 for the past two months, and in May the index should expand even more at a predicted 55.9 level. The index, which covers the financial, construction, and services industries, has been lagging its manufacturing cousin index, but its recent levels have been suggestive of broad and steady growth in the economy.
Economists at BMO Capital Markets expect markets to focus on the report’s employment numbers.
“The employment sub-index will likely climb above 50 for the first time since December 2007 ― not coincidentally the start of the recession ― playing catch-up with private-service-sector payrolls which have already been growing for four months,” they wrote.
Meantime, economists at IHS Global Insight said that freight activity has been speeding up while order volumes overall are climbing.
11:00 ― Treasury announces the terms of next week's 3 year, 10 year, and 30 year debt auctions
1:15 ― Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed, speaks to the Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Chamber of Commerce.