Wall Street Awaits Jobs Data

It’s the final Jobs Week of 2024 this week, and as such holds particular importance for the Fed, who will decide on forward monetary policy based partly on the health of the U.S. labor market. Last month, we saw a huge gap between private-sector payrolls from ADP (ADP) coming in at +233K new jobs filled, and the U.S. government’s Employment Situation report only brought in +12K positions. We’ll see if revisions pull these numbers closer together.

Tuesday brings us the latest JOLTS report for October, which is expected to tick up to 7.6 million job openings from 7.4 million a month ago (and well off the 12.2 million where we peaked in 2022). Wednesday’s ADP is expected to cool to +158K new private-sector jobs, while Friday’s non-farm payrolls look to blossom back up to 200K. Should all of these things transpire, expect the Fed’s plotted 25 basis-point (bps) rate cut to happen as planned on December 18th.

Intel (INTC) CEO Pat Gelsinger, head of Intel since 2021, has stepped down from his post effective immediately. Shares of the chip-making giant are up +5% in pre-market trading. Interim co-CEOs David Zisner and Michelle Johnston-Holthaus are replacing Gelsinger.

The outgoing CEO presided over a time period where NVIDIA (NVDA) started eating all the cake. Intel posted huge negative earnings surprises in its September and June quarters (they averaged worse than -1000%), and shares are down -49% year to date. Will the new heads of the company begin to carve a space in AI technology? That would seem to be main question going forward.

Once the market opens today, we look for key monthly production figures from S&P final Manufacturing PMI and ISM Manufacturing, both for November. The S&P headline is expected to be in-line with the previous month’s 48.8, while ISM looks to come up a bit, from 46.5 to 47.5. Notably, both of these are sub-50 — still in contraction territory.

Also, Construction Spending for October is expected to reach +0.2% from +0.1% in September. This would make it three straight months of positive numbers, and off the volatility, we had seen earlier this year: April was +1.3% and June was -1.1%.

All of these sets of numbers are prone to changes from an upcoming presidential administration. Although Donald Trump did have a previous four-year term, it would appear his second will start out on a different tack: gone are the lauded generals from his previous cabinet; he’s moved toward outside-the-box thinkers with TV experience. It’s probably wise for forward guidance to remain muted for now.

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