While you were sleeping: US jobs, manufacturing lift

Friday 2nd June 2017

Wall Street climbed to record highs as the latest US jobs and manufacturing data bolstered expectations that the pace of economic growth will justify a Federal Reserve interest rate increase this month.

The US dollar strengthened while Treasuries slid. An ADP report showed US companies added 253,000 workers to payrolls in May, more than the 185,000 economists had expected.

“Job growth is rip-roaring,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a statement, according to Bloomberg. Moody’s produces the figures with ADP. “The current pace of job growth is nearly three times the rate necessary to absorb growth in the labour force. Increasingly, businesses’ number one challenge will be a shortage of labour.”

Also, an Institute for Supply Management report showed its manufacturing index rose to 54.9 in May from 54.8 in April.

The latest data cemented bets that Fed policy makers will hike interest rates when they meet this month.

"It does help indicate continued and increasing strength in the overall US employment picture, which bodes very well for an impending Fed rate hike," Gain Capital's head of research James Chen wrote in a research note on the latest ADP data, Reuters reported.

In 3.17pm trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.6 percent. In 3.02pm trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 0.26 percent.

The S&P 500 rose to a record 2,426.94, while the Nasdaq touched a record 6,237.47.

The Dow rose, led by gains in shares of UnitedHealth and those of Goldman Sachs, recently up 2.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively. Bucking the trend were shares of Nike and those of Verizon, down 0.9 percent and 0.7 percent respectively, for the biggest percentage declines in the Dow.

Shares of Canada's Saputo dropped after the Montreal-based company, which is one of the world’s top-10 dairy processors, posted quarterly profit and revenue that fell short of expectations.

Saputo posted adjusted net earnings of C$165.2 million (US$122.2 million) in the fourth quarter, up from C$164.8 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenues declined to C$2.72 billion, down from C$2.73 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Shares of Saputo traded 7.6 percent weaker in Toronto, as of 2.02pm.

The earnings miss was due to a drop in the volume of cheese sales in the United States, BMO analyst Peter Sklar said in a note, Reuters reported. “

“We consider this to be an unusually material miss for Saputo's US segment,” according to Sklar.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a 0.21 percent decline from the previous close. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index rose 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX Index added 0.4 percent, while France’s CAC40 Index gained 0.7 percent.

(BusinessDesk)

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