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U.S. equity futures nudged higher in early Thursday trading, while Treasury bond yields held steady, as investors extended bets on autumn Federal Reserve rate cuts following dovish minutes from the central bank’s July meeting and a big revision to gains in the domestic job market.
Stocks ended higher yesterday, taking the S&P 500 back to within less than 1% of its July all-time back, with a late-afternoon rally that was accelerated by the release of minutes from its policy meeting last month in Washington.
The minutes showed that a “vast majority” of Fed officials “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting”.
Added to a big downward revision for jobs growth over the twelve months ending in March by the Bureau for Labor Statistics, which pared its previous tally by 818,000, and markets boosted bets on a 50 basis point rate cut from the Fed next month in Washington.
The Federal Reserve’s annual central banking symposium will kick off later today in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
That sentiment is carrying over into the Thursday session, with benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields trading at 3.816% and 2-year notes pegged at 3.955%.
The CME Group’s FedWatch tool, meanwhile, puts the odds of a 50 basis point reduction at around 30.5%, with markets betting on a full percentage point worth of cuts between now and the end of the year.
Focus in today’s session is likely to remain on the economy and the labor market, with weekly jobless claims data due at 8:30 am Eastern time and S&P Global’s flash reading of August manufacturing sector activity due 90 minutes later.
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The Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium all kicks-off later today in Wyoming, with Chair Jerome Powell’s keynote address on deck for Friday as 10:00 am Eastern.
Heading into the start of the trading day, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 suggest a modest 5 point advance, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average called 50 points higher. The tech-focused Nasdaq is priced for a 27 point gain.
Snowflake (SNOW) shares were a notable premarket mover, falling 9.7% to $121.97 each, after the data cloud analytics issued a muted forecast for profit margins that offset solid second quarter earnings.
Pandemic darling Zoom Video Communications (ZM) , meanwhile, rose 3.7% after its topped Wall Street’s second quarter earnings forecast and boosted its full-year profit outlook.
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In overseas markets, the broadest measure of stocks, the MSCI all-world index rose 0.41% to extend its year-to-date advance close to 15%, and near to July all-time high.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 was marked 0.5% higher in Frankfurt, while Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.24% in early London dealing.
Overnight in Asia, a solid 0.68% gain for the Nikkei 225 lifted the benchmark to the highest level in three weeks, taking it back above the levels its traded prior to the carry trade meltdown on August 5.
The regional MSCI ex-Japan benchmark, meanwhile, was marked 0.31% higher heading into the close of trading.
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