A flat open in the US did little for Europe, with the Eurozone indices eventually following the FTSE lower as Thursday went on.
Still waiting on the latest coronavirus relief plan from Congress – reports suggest it could be here by the end of the week – the Dow Jones wasn’t willing to play ball, sitting on its hands at 27200.
This means it appeared to take the latest jobless claims reading in its stride. At 1.186 million, the figure was notably lower than the 1.41 million expected; yet at the same time, that it still hasn’t gone under the 1 million mark is a worry. We’ve now see 20 consecutive weeks of 7-digit numbers.
Spooked by the Bank of England, cable’s 6-month highs, and a sector-dragging update from Glencore (LON:GLEN) –which fell 7.4 – the FTSE had a rough one on Thursday. Dropping 1.2%, the UK index is sitting at 6025, somewhere in the middle of the 6150 highs and 5900 lows seen across the final 2 days of July.
After a positive start the Eurozone indices capitulated as the session progressed. The DAX dropped 50 points to return to 12600, with the CAC down 0.8% and now the wrong side of 4900.
Friday is going to be dominated by nonfarm chatter, especially since a) Donald Trump has promised a big figure, and b) the ADP reading drastically undershot estimates. Analysts are forecasting 1.55 million jobs were created, down from 4.8 million the month previous.
However, considering July saw certain states retreat back into various degrees of lockdown AND the general lack of accuracy regarding nonfarm estimates since the pandemic began, it’s hard to know how much faith to put in that figure.
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