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Clickbait Style Title: Job Growth Predicted to Slow Down as Wall Street Sees Sluggish Start to January
Friday morning saw stocks futures take a dip ahead of a crucial jobs report, as investors’ attempt to put an end to a choppy start to January was thwarted. Futures attached to the Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by around 0.2%, S&P 500 futures were down by the same percent, while those for the Nasdaq 100 shrank by 0.3%.
Economists’ projections indicate that job growth will be stagnant at 170,000 for the month. Unexpected results in either direction could wreak havoc with the stock market, with many anticipating that the economy is on course to retain its growth rate, which could warrant rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
Beleaguered securities exchanges – veterans of five and four consecutive down sessions – also hunkered down on Thursday, with the Dow barely rising in the process. For the week so far, Nasdaq Composite has lost the most, at 3.3%, followed by S&P 500 with 1.7% and the Dow at 0.7%.
Deceleration among tech shares, such as Apple, has provided ample reason for the so-called pause, observed Amy Kong of Corient, a wealth management organization. She warned that prices had priced in a ‘great burst of optimism’ but warned that current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios – at 20-times – were too high both absolutely and historically. Therefore, new investments in the sector would have to wait until the EP ratio justified itself.