US NFP: Hiring in July Slips Way Under Consensus with 73,000 New Jobs. Stocks Nosedive.

Downward revisions for May and June stripped 258,000 jobs that were previously factored in as labor-market growth. Ghost jobs?

📉 Who Took Those Numbers?

• The latest nonfarm payrolls USNFP are out. And it’s not too good. The US labor market just hit a speed bump the size of a small recession scare.
• Only 73,000 jobs were added in July, way below the 115,000 expected, while revisions slashed a combined 258,000 jobs from May and June’s previously reported figures.
• June was cut to 14,000 jobs from 147,000, and May was slashed to 19,000 from 139,000. Guys over at the BLS, what’s up with that?

📚 Fed’s September Playbook

• The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, slightly above June’s 4.1%, as more Americans re-entered the workforce but didn’t land jobs.
• With this much labor market softness, rate cut expectations for September just got a big jolt. Fed watchers are now dialing up bets that Jay Powell & Co. will act sooner rather than later.
• But the Fed is still in a bind — Trump’s new 15% tariffs on EU and Japanese goods are expected to keep inflation sticky, making any rate move more complicated.

😲 Wall Street Gets Surprised

• Two Fed governors dissented this week, saying the rate should be cut now. It’s the first time since 1993 that two sitting members went against the majority.
• Dow Jones futures dropped 450 points on the news, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures also slumped, putting pressure on what has already been a challenging week for equities — and a bumpy start of the new month.
• The labor report was supposed to confirm the trend. Instead, it raised whispers of “how about no” in economic parlance.