NEW YORK (awp international) – The eagerly anticipated job data from the United States did not give Wall Street much directional momentum on Friday. “This labor market report will give central bankers a headache,” commented portfolio manager Thomas Altmann from asset manager QC Partners. “An unemployment rate at an annual low and newly created jobs also at an annual low do not really fit together.” According to him, the traffic light for the start of tapering, ie to reduce the expansionary monetary policy measures, remains “on yellow”.
The Dow Jones Industrial oscillated between small gains and losses in early trading. Most recently it went up by 0.10 percent to 34,789.83 points. Over the course of the week, this means an increase of 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 rose 0.16 percent to 4406.59 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell 0.04 percent to 14,890.80 points.
In view of the inconsistent signals sent by the US labor market report, Altmann thinks it is quite possible that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) will postpone its tapering announcement to December. Helaba economist Ulrich Wortberg, however, sees no reason for this. Aside from the unemployment rate, he mainly points to the continued rise in hourly wages, which could increase inflation concerns.
In September, only 194,000 new jobs had been created outside of agriculture in the United States, while experts had reckoned it would be half a billion. At the same time, however, the unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent and thus far more clearly than expected and stronger than expected, the wage development was also from./ck/he
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