It wasn’t a manic session, which is often the case the day after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. This means investors are taking Powell in stride (delayed rate cuts) or reading between the lines; the Fed could swing into action (hasten rate cuts) with a negative employment surprise.

Market Breadth	NYSE	NASDAQ
Advancers	2,190	2,989
Decliners	603	1,267
New Highs	80	78
New Lows	25	101
Up Volume	3.31 billion	3.51 billion
Down Volume	1.02 billion	1.33 billion

The ‘generals’ reported for duty.

Big Tech is Back

Technology (TLK) was the best-performing sector, and semiconductors performed best within the industry.

The VanEck Vectors (semiconductors) ETF (SMH) still needs to improve, including improving its Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Rate of Change (ROC) and closing above the 50-day moving average.

Big Apple

Apple (AAPL) posted results that fractally beat the Street on every level but could hardly be called impressive.

The stock popped more than 6.0% in after-hours trading.

Management announced the most significant buyback in history:

$110,000,000,000!

Jobs Day

Most of the data points to slow job growth, including job postings on Indeed.com.

But Goldman Sachs (GS) is looking for 265,000 against the consensus of 250,000.  The government will continue to be the wild card.

Today’s Session

The jobs number came in way below expectations at 175,000. 

Meanwhile, the Unemployment rate rose to 3.9%, while the consensus was for it to remain flat at 3.8%. Average hourly earnings were up 0.2% from the prior period.

Bond yields are down on the news, and the markets are rocking.

Comments

Maybe the jobs report is finally catching up with some form of reality. Still highly questionable, based on the past revisions vs. the expectation est. broadcasted. Charles, I too wish they would place a little more emphasis in the media around the revisions, instead of focusing only on the initial read which are always wrong. At times they might be close based on how they model the numbers at the time, but when the addition data is presented and off by 10's of Ks... Something, somewhere is not being properly accounted for. Terry Dowler on 5/3/2024 9:50:26 AM

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