Oil prices hit a two-month low today. As of 4 p.m. West Texas Intermediate was trading at $44.49 a barrel, down 2.05% on the day, and Brent benchmark crude was at $46.07, down 1.48%. The driver for the retreat in prices was worry over increasing supply.
At the same time as government statisticians announced the creation of 287,000 jobs in June, they also revised May’s already shockingly weak 38,000 job figure down to just 11,000. That leaves us looking at a swing from 11,000 to 287,000– or 276,000 jobs in a month. An $18 trillion economy just doesn’t move that fast. So somewhere in the month to month data there’s likely to be a statistical glitch.
Today it looks like the financial markets are holding their collective breath waiting for tomorrow’s official jobs report for June. As of 3 p.m. New York time the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was down a slight 0.23%. At least that’s the impression an investor gets looking at the U.S. equity markets. But in the bond market, which I’d argue is more important than the market for stocks right now, there’s considerable turmoil not so far under the surface
The minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June 15 meeting, released today, make it clear that the decision to hold rates steady instead of increasing them had to do with more than uncertainty about the upcoming Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. Fed members were just as worried about the surprisingly weak 38,000 jobs created in May
A research report from Citigroup today says that currency fluctuations–an especially the stronger dollar–will lead to weaker than expected iPhone sales. Sales problems with the iPhone ripple out from Apple across the technology sector. Today, for example, Pacific Crest Securities, downgraded Apple suppliers Skyworks and Qualcomm and more
While other central banks–the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan, for example–are signaling their willingness to throw more cash at the global financial system in the wake of the Brexit vote that is likely to send the United Kingdom tumbling out of the European Union, Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank, doesn’t want to play.
