US jobs with a side of Canadian bacon and a trade balance chaser
The menu today is stuffed full of economic data and it's all coming at the bottom of the hour. There are four reports:
Non-farm payrolls
Canadian employment
US trade balance
Canadian merchandise trade
For non-farm payrolls, the focus is going to be on the wages numbers once again. The consensus on average hourly earnings is +0.2% vs +0.3% m/m prior.
For Canada, the focus is also increasingly on wages and the metric for hourly earnings for permanent employees is forecast up 2.3% from 2.2% y/y prior. The unemployment rate is expected to be steady at 5.9%.
What threatens to steal the show are the trade reports. Yesterday's massive Australian dollar rally was kicked off by an extremely strong trade surplus. I think economists are expressing far too much confidence in how the trade war is unfolding and that the data could prove some surprises. There are also signs that the US trade deficit continues to worsen. Don't ignore these reports.
For more of what's expected, see the economic calendar.
