Much higher than expectations

The ADP employment change came in at 271K vs 180K estimate. Big beat.

  • Education, health services +6 K
  • Leisure and hospitality, +39K
  • construction, +37K
  • trade/transportation, +33K
  • manufacturing, +12K
  • The prior month was revised lower to 157K from 179K
  • the rise was the largest since February 2017
  • small firms added 89K
  • medium firms added 129K
  • large firms added 54K
  • goods producing, +47K
  • service producing +224K

The US stocks have improved a bit after the stronger growth. The Dow is down -229 points after being down about -280 points. The S&P is down -23 points (was -30 points). Yields in the US have ticked higher with the 2 year up to 2.502%, up 3.4 bps (at highs).

Earlier today, the challenge of job cuts came in at 35.3%.

  • Total job cuts in 2018 538,659 which was the highest total since 598,510 in 2015
  • retail cuts totaled 18.3% of all announced cuts this year

US initial jobless claims will be released at the bottom of the hour with expectations of 220 K versus 216 K