| US jobs are expected to slow, Goldman warns of bonus cuts and FX woes continue. US employers are forecast to expand their payrolls by 200,000 in November, though the report may fall far short of the turning point Federal Reserve officials are seeking in their battle to beat back inflation. Earlier data showed that manufacturing contracted in November for the first time since May 2020. The report also comes amid signs showing global inflation may have peaked, though a likely slow retreat from multi-decade highs means it will remain a bugbear for central banks into 2023. Goldman executives were warned of cuts to year-end bonuses this year, people familiar with the matter said, despite the bank being on track for its biggest revenue haul in a decade. Austerity is the new mood in the industry, with many veterans uncertain about the outlook for earnings in 2023. In the UK, a battle is brewing over how bankers will be compensated after the government pledged to scrap the bonus cap. While the restriction led to banks paying much larger salaries to their executives so their total compensation remained competitive, some say it won't be easy to unilaterally cut salaries once the cap is scrapped.  | Bloomberg Businessweek has a look around Sam Bankman-Fried's Bahamian penthouse, which looks like a dorm after the students have left for winter break — a far cry from the typical tour reporters got before FTX imploded. After watching televised interviews of SBF, Galaxy Digital Chief Executive Officer Mike Novogratz characterized him as "delusional." Meanwhile, US authorities are asking crypto investors and trading firms that worked closely with FTX to hand over information. Stocks hold steady ahead of the well-flagged US jobs report, with recent upward momentum petering out. The Stoxx 600 edged lower, trimming its seventh straight weekly gain. Futures contracts on the S&P 500 were little changed as of 6:05 a.m. New York time. In FX markets, the yen extended gains as the dollar's downward momentum continued, and South Africa's rand climbed on political developments. Gold held above $1,800/oz. Traders' big focus is on the US jobs report. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists calls for payrolls to rise 200,000 in November and hourly earnings to climb 4.6% from a year ago. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin discusses the labor market during the 2022 Virginia Economic Summit and Forum on International Trade in Richmond. The Fed's Charles Evans also speaks. Cracker Barrel and Canadian Western Bank are among companies set to report earnings. Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: We get yet another health check on the US economy in the form of non-farm payrolls later today. It may be the most important of the year, and sets the tone for Treasury trading heading into this month's Federal Reserve meeting. There's plenty riding on it, coming as it does after a slew of recent signs that the economy is fast losing momentum. Just this week alone, we saw the ADP jobs report showing the smallest net addition in almost two years, not to mention the contraction in the ISM manufacturing PMI. The median economist forecast is for non-farm payrolls to show a reading of 200,000, the smallest expansion since 2020. That's not a complete surprise after the ADP report, though more often than not, the latter is a poor bellwether of what the non-farm payrolls data eventually shows. Throughout this cycle, we have seen the jobs market being extremely tight, with the employment rate holding around levels that -- absent inflationary pressures -- would have been a central banker's dream. And it is that concept of a tight labor market defying all other signs in the economy that is being put to the test today. Treasury long-dated yields have come off a fair bit from their cyclical highs and declined below the lower end of the Fed's benchmark. That occurrence -- a dipstick of fear in the market -- has traditionally presaged a shrinking labor market in data going back more than five decades. Generally, there has been some lag, meaning at least a few months, and considering the Fear Gauge turned negative just last month, there may yet be time before the labor market starts shrinking. Around this time last year, central banks were still largely complacent to risks of spiraling inflation. Twelve months later, the question that the markets have begun asking is whether the risks of a weakening economy are mounting too fast. Today's non-farm payrolls will be a litmus test for that sentiment. Follow Bloomberg's Ven Ram on Twitter @ven_word | 
No comments:
Post a Comment