Friday’s big news was the July jobs report which showed a better than expected gain of 209,000 with the unemployment rate down to 4.3%, This is a 16-year low. Average hourly earnings rose by 0.3% but year-over-year the gain has been only 2.5%. The prior two months were revised upward by 2,000. The length of the average workweek remained unchanged at 34.5 hours. The labor force participation rate moved a little higher to 62.9. The largest gains came from the leisure and hospitality sector, professional services and healthcare. This now means that for the first seven months of 2017, the monthly gain has averaged 184,000.
Today’s market is keeping to a positive angle. The DOW is up 14, the NASDAQ ahead by 28, and the S&P gaining 2 with an hour to the closing bell.
Earnings are now in the home stretch. Soon it will be the retailers who take center stage, but not quite yet. The lineup for this week is: Today – CBS, MAR, TSN all higher on their reports; Tuesday – Dow component DIS plus TRIP, FOSL, RL, PCLN, JCI, CVS, KORS; Wednesday – MYL; Thursday – NVDA, JWN, M, KSS’ Friday – JCP.
Donald M. Selkin
Don Selkin is the Chief Market Strategist at Newbridge Securities Corporation, member FINRA/SIPC and provides the Fair Value analysis for CNBC each morning. The commentary provided in this Market Letter is intended to provide timely market analysis and should not be considered a research report. This Market Letter may contain, and is limited to: Discussions of broad based indices; Commentaries on economic, political or market conditions; Technical analyses concerning the demand and supply for a sector, index or industry based in trading volume and price; Statistical summaries of multiple companies’ financial data, including listings of current ratings; and, Recommendations regarding increasing or decreasing holdings in particular industries or securities. This Market Letter does not make a financial or investment recommendation or otherwise promotes a product or service of the firm. This Market Letter contains only news, facts, and commentary on information previously reported from a news source believed to be accurate and reliable by the author. These news sources include the following: Bloomberg Financial, Reuters and the Associated Press.