T3’s Market Wrap: Light Jobs Report, Gold Gets to Shine a Little Bit
The July nonfarm payrolls report was released this morning.
The economy added 157,000 jobs in July, slightly missing the 190,000 consensus. The unemployment rate came in at 3.9% as expected, and wage growth was in-line at 0.3%. And last month's number was revised up to 248,000 from 213,000, with wages being revised down.
So overall, the report was basically a tad light, but nothing disastrous.
The big winner off the report was gold, which had a decent rally in the aftermath of the report.
And gold mining stocks absolutely ripped, with the Vaneck Vector Gold Miners ETF (GDX) topping my ETF leaderboard. Silver was also up.
I reached out to T3 Live's Austin Silver for his thoughts on the forex market after the numbers came out. Here's what he told me:
After pushing to a daily high of 111.86 during the London season, USDJPY fell through two daily support levels, down to 111.15. This 71 pip drop comes on a news of a slightly lower unemployment rate in the US.
The sell off doesn’t come as a shock after seeing this pair try and fail to break the resistance level at 112.00 earlier this week.
Looking a head to Monday, watch 110.82 as we approach the 50 EMA on the Daily chart. If we break that, this may head to 110.10 or lower.
By the way, here's a video replay of Austin's live analysis from the report:
While earnings season has been a big success thus far, it hasn't been great for every single company.
Insurer AIG (AIG) fell after reporting much weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings.
Video game maker Activision (ATVI) fell after beating on earnings but issuing a muted outlook.
Noble Energy (NBL) took a major hit today after missing estimates by a good margin.
And Kraft Heinz (KHC) rose after beating expectations.
But let's look at the bigger picture.
The Star Tribune, quoting statistics from Factset, had this to say:
Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver earnings-per-share growth of 24 percent for the second quarter. When the quarter started in April, Wall Street was expecting a 19 percent jump, according to FactSet. So far, about three quarters of the companies in the index have reported.
If the current pace holds, it would mark the second straight quarter that growth has been close to 25 percent.
Impressive stuff! The bears have been saying for several quarters that earnings can't get any better than this. Will they be right? Who knows?