Investing.com — Wall Street appeared to be stalling Friday ahead of the release of the widely watched monthly U.S. jobs report, looking for clues about future Federal Reserve policy. Bitcoin's dominance could be threatened as it tumbles below $100,000 and investors turn to cash.
1. Salary payments will be huge
All eyes on Friday will be on the release of the U.S. jobs report, scheduled for later in the session, to gain new insight into how the economy is progressing ahead of the December Federal Reserve meeting. It will be worth paying attention to.
Economists expect the economy to grow by 202,000 jobs in November, up from just 12,000 jobs in October, when disruptions from strikes and hurricanes severely curtailed job growth. I have recovered.
This was the smallest increase since December 2020.
Such a recovery could lead to the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates again later this month, especially after U.S. growth slowed in November and the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week. It is unlikely that market expectations will change.
But a repeat of September's explosive jobs report could disrupt expectations for future Fed rate cuts.
Financial markets now believe there is about a 70% chance that the U.S. central bank will cut interest rates by 25 basis points at its December 17-18 policy meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool.
2. Futures remain firm ahead of non-agricultural employment numbers
U.S. stock futures were little changed on Friday, with investors wary of making commitments ahead of the release of the widely watched official monthly jobs report.
By 3:50 p.m. ET (7:50 p.m. Japan time), the contract was up 20 points, or 0.1%, up 3 points, or 0.1%, and up 23 points, or 0.1%.
The main index retreated from record levels in Thursday's pre-trade, with the main index down almost 250 points, or 0.6%.
For the week so far, Broadbase stocks are up 0.7% and tech stocks are up 2.5%, while the DJIA is down slightly.
A key focus of the day was the release of non-farm payrolls numbers, which came after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said earlier in the week that the world's largest economy was strong enough for the central bank to keep people employed. Home is looking for clues about the health of the U.S. labor market. The government should be cautious in lowering interest rates.
On the corporate side, Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:), Gitlab (NASDAQ:), and DocuSign (NASDAQ:) will be in the spotlight, as each company announced positive earnings results after Thursday's close.
3. Will Bitcoin’s dominance weaken?
It fell on Friday, retreating after topping the $100,000 mark earlier in the week, potentially eroding the world's most popular cryptocurrency's dominance.
As of 3:50 ET, Bitcoin was trading 4.3% lower at $98,550.0, but still up more than 1% this week.
Digital currencies soared to record highs this week on optimism about deregulation under President Donald Trump, with the latest support coming from Trump's nomination of a crypto advocate to be the next head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has appointed attorney Paul Atkins.
The overall market capitalization of the crypto sector reached an all-time high of $3.7 trillion on Thursday, but interestingly Bitcoin's relative share of market capitalization had fallen to 53.9% by Friday, according to data from CoinMarketCap. showed. Late November.
Citi analysts say regulatory clarity could undermine the coin's dominance in the crypto market by broadening the attractiveness of the asset class and potentially increasing the strength of coins and tokens beyond Bitcoin. I was warned that it was sexual.
“In the long term, the utility and value of a network will be related not only to usage, but also to macro correlations and production costs. New regulatory regimes will unlock even broader use cases for blockchain assets. “There is a possibility that the
4. Investors focus on cash
Investors are turning to cash this week amid uncertainty over whether Wall Street's recent rally that led to record closing prices will continue.
A Bank of America report released early Friday said investors poured $136.4 billion into cash in the week that ended Wednesday, the biggest week since March 2023, when the market was roiled by the local banking crisis. This was the amount of inflow.
U.S. stocks continued to buy for the ninth week in a row, but equity inflows were at a lower level at $8.2 billion, while investors also bought $4.9 billion in bonds.
Crypto received $3 billion in infusions, marking record inflows of $11 billion in four weeks.
5. Brent is doing well with weekly losses
Oil prices fell on Friday, with global indexes on track for a sharp weekly decline on concerns about slowing demand after OPEC+ extended current supply cuts until 2025.
By 3:50 ET, U.S. crude oil futures (WTI) were down 0.4% at $68.02 per barrel, and Brent crude oil futures were down 0.4% at $71.77 per barrel.
For the week, Brent was on track to decline by about 1.5%, while WTI maintained modest gains.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, have delayed the start of output increases by three months until April and extended the full lifting of production cuts by one year to the end of 2026.
The major producer groups had originally planned to start easing production cuts in October, but slowing global demand, particularly in China, forced them to postpone their plans multiple times.
The cartel has also repeatedly revised downward its demand growth forecasts for 2024 and 2025.
