You Won’t Believe How Flat the Market is After Payrolls Took a Nosedive!

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Well now, the Dow Jones Industrial Average decided to play possum-just layin’ there with no more motion than a cat in a summer sunbeam-as U.S. stocks barely twisted an inch Thursday morning. Seems like Wall Street is squintin’ hard at the latest jobs numbers, which, spoiler alert, showed private payrolls takin’ a bit of a tumble. Handy info for anyone lookin’ to get rich quick, or lose slow. 🧐

the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was sittin’ at 4.19% and the 30-year yield at 4.78%, like they were too weary to climb any higher.

Weak Labor Market

Stocks hovered near flat like a lazy cat after the August private payrolls report limped in with only 54,000 new jobs-when smarty-pants economists had been countin’ on 75,000. That’s like expecting a full belly and getting a measly nibble instead.

Analysts began mutterin’ about the labor market bein’ frothy, but the kind of frothy that means your milk’s gone bad – especially since July’s numbers got revised down from a plump 106,000. ADP published that fine piece of news Thursday mornin’ with all the cheerfulness of a Mississippi mudslide.

“The year started with strong job growth, but that momentum has been whipsawed by uncertainty,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, which sounds like a polite way of sayin’, “We don’t know what’s going on, but it ain’t good.”

Since July’s government job openings didn’t exactly lay down the welcome mat either, investors are now bettin’ the Fed will chop interest rates this month like a lumberjack at a pine convention.

Ahead of the Fed’s September powwow, the CME’s FedWatch tool shows Wall Street ramped up its odds of a rate cut to a whopping 97.4% – nearly as sure as your Aunt Sally’s tales about the one that got away.

Now all eyes are pinned on the August jobs report slated for Friday, which promises to be about as thrilling as a catfish in a barrel.

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2025-09-04 18:22