And then there are non-farm payrolls, which are expected to show U.S. jobs growth slowed moderately in March to 200,000 new jobs, while wage gains remained elevated.
As well as March’s number, investors are also watching out for revisions to previous month’s data, as past changes have been significant – Treasury yields fell a month ago after February’s jobs report, partly because it revised down January’s stonking figure of 353,000 jobs to 229,000.
Friday’s data is also expected to show the unemployment rate remaining below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such stretch since the late 1960s.
The data will be important as it comes at a time when investors getting a bit jittery about whether the Federal Reserve will cut rates in June.
We’ve seen this movie before, as both March and May were once seen as the Fed’s start date. Friday’s data and next week’s U.S. CPI will help decide whether June will go the same way.
This could cause some ructions in markets, particularly in Japan where authorities’ threats to intervene directly in currency markets to prop up the weak yen have left the dollar unable to break past the 152-yen level, which traders see as something of a line in the sand.
“The risk is that today’s U.S. payrolls report pushes USD/JPY sharply higher which in turn triggers an actual intervention from Japan’s Ministry of Finance,” said currency analysts at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in a note.
