Friends
We had a very disappointing non-farm payroll number as only 194,000 new jobs were created in September. Remember, expectations were that we would see 500,000 new jobs created or more. The unemployment rate did fall to 4.8%, but that somewhat contradicts the more than 10 million job openings that we now have in this country. Regardless, stocks really didn’t know how to react to the jobs number as the market averages wavered for most of the trading session. Bond yields, somewhat surprisingly moved higher despite the economic data disappointment.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8 points to close at 34,746. The S&P 500 was down 8 points to finish the day at 4,391. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 74 points to close at 14,579. Gold was down $2 to trade at $1,757 per ounce, while oil was up $1.30 to trade at $79.60 per barrel WTI.
Once again it was a volatile week of trading, but stocks fared better this week after damage we have seen in previous weeks. We will begin to move into earnings season next week so we will likely get more color from companies about their struggles with supply lines. Stay tuned.
Have a great weekend everyone.
