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SPX: S&P 500 Treads Water as Private Jobs Hit 2-Year Low. What About Friday’s NFP?

1 min read
Key points:
  • S&P 500 ekes out tiny gain
  • Trump blasts Powell again
  • NFP data coming Friday

American companies’ recruiters stayed put in May — the ADP report showed just 37,000 new hires. Is this the canary in the coal mine before Friday’s nonfarm payrolls?

📌 Stocks Pause for Breath

  • The S&P 500 (SPX) barely moved on Wednesday, eking out a 0.01% gain — not even a full point — as traders weighed disappointing labor data that sparked some fears of a dwindling economy.
  • What’s more, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite led the rise with a modest 0.3% advance thanks to strength in tech names.
  • Futures contracts tied to the major benchmarks were slow to wake up for trading on Thursday, floating near the flatline ahead of the opening bell.

📞 ADP Miss Jolts Confidence

  • Private sector hiring ground to a near halt in May, with the ADP report showing just 37,000 new jobs — a fraction of the 110,000 expected. This led to momentum stalling as investors are now all eyes and ears ahead of Friday’s all-important nonfarm payrolls report.
  • It was the weakest showing in over two years, fueling fears that the US labor market — the Fed’s pillar of strength — may be losing steam.
  • Wall Street took notice, with the jobs miss casting a shadow over upcoming economic prints and raising recession red flags once again. Friday’s jobs data is expected to show the economy added 130,000 new jobs in May, a lower print than the 177,000 in April.

👀 Eyes on Friday’s NFP

  • “ADP NUMBER OUT!!! ‘Too Late’ Powell must now LOWER THE RATE. He is unbelievable!!!” You all know who that is — Trump is once again on the offensive and blasting the Fed boss through his social media platform Truth Social.
  • If hiring is indeed losing momentum halfway through the year, the NFP data coming out tomorrow should show it, too. A weak readout could throw stocks in a limbo as traders try to figure out what this means for the path of interest rates.
  • On the one hand, a cool report might help the Fed get more conviction about a rate cut. But on the other hand, cutting too soon could cause inflation to flare up again just as it’s been steadily trickling to the downside.