(CercleFinance.com) – Wall Street should open without much movement on Friday morning after contrasting employment figures, which revealed an acceleration in job creation but also a surprise rise in the unemployment rate.
A little more than half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on the major New York indices posted gains of around 0.2%, announcing a very slight increase in the start of the session.
The Department of Labor recorded 275,000 non-agricultural job creations in February, compared to 229,000 the previous month (revised from 353,000) and a counter-consensus which anticipated around 200,000 new positions.
Due to a downward revision of statistics from the previous two months, the unemployment rate rose to 3.9% last month, compared to 3.7% in January.
The ‘futures’ on indices – which suggested a rather stable opening this morning – moved upwards after these figures, but in moderate proportions.
In view of the FedWatch barometer, which still expects a 59% probability of a rate cut in June, these figures have not significantly changed expectations of an upcoming monetary easing by the Fed.
Closely monitored by the Federal Reserve, the average hourly wage – which makes it possible to measure wage inflation – only increased by 0.1% in February, which marks a clear slowdown compared to recent months.
The increasingly real possibility of seeing the Fed reduce its rates in June continues to weigh on the dollar, which allows the euro to recover almost 0.2% above 1.0960 against the note Green.
The yield on Treasury bonds continues to fall, with ten-year paper returning to around 4.06%, moving in the opposite direction to that of equities.
Oil prices are showing heaviness, with a barrel of light Texan crude trading at around $78.5, and are heading towards a weekly decline after two consecutive weeks of increases despite last Sunday’s decision by OPEC+. to support the prices of black gold through control of production capacities.
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