Here’s the latest news on what stocks are doing.
With the January jobs report, we now know employers added 6.6 million jobs during Joe Biden’s first 12 months in office — by far the best first-year jobs gain for any US president. The previous record holder was Jimmy Carter, who had 2.8 million jobs added during his first 12 months in office. On a percentage basis, jobs are up 4.6% from where overall employment stood in January 2021. That’s the second-best percentage gain, the only slightly behind the 4.8% gain during Carter’s first year. There were 2.1 million jobs added during Donald Trump’s first 12 months in office. Good news for jobs is bad news for the stock market apparently. Futures slid Friday morning after the United States government reported a surprisingly large number of jobs were added last month. Dow futures were pointing to a nearly 250 point drop at the opening bell, a steeper decline than what futures were indicating before the jobs numbers came out. Futures for the S&P 500 edged lower too and Nasdaq futures, which had been pointing to solid gains thanks to strong earnings from Amazon ( AMZN), Snap ( SNAP) and Pinterest ( PINS), were flat. It appears that investors are concerned about what the numbers mean for the Federal Reserve, which is expected to begin raising interest rates next month to fight inflation. Rising wages could put pressure on the Fed to raise rates more times and possibly at higher amounts than the market is currently expecting.
