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How to assess the September jobs report in the absence of BLS data. (00:25) Apple (AAPL) drops ICEBlock app from App Store after Trump DOJ demand. (02:36) USA Rare Earth stock jumps 10% after CEO says in talks with Trump admin – report. (03:26)
This is an abridged transcript.
If the Bureau of Labor Statistics were issuing its September Employment Situation report today, economists were expecting a headline payrolls number rebounding some from August, but significantly weaker than a year ago. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at 4.3%.
CNN reported on Thursday that the BLS has collected its September labor data and is likely ready for release. That makes sense as the shutdown came just a few days before the report was due to be released. Data is generally collected the calendar week that contains the 12th of the month.
Allison Shrivastava, economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, describes the current labor market as “stagnant.”
“The employment data is incredibly important, especially when we’re in an economy that is very much ‘low fire, low hire,’ and we’re really looking to any kind of indication of the direction that we’re headed in,” Indeed’s Shrivastava said. Still, there are some private sources of data that can supplement the government data. For example, Indeed has job postings data.
She’s looking at sector-level job postings to give an indication of how health care is doing vs. all other sectors. In recent months, health care has been a main engine of job creation. More than half of the jobs have been in health care and social services sectors.
The headline numbers for job postings are still above prepandemic levels, however, all but one sector have declined year-over-year, Shrivastava said. “We had a really strong economy in 2022,” she noted. “But it’s residual strength that’s bolstering our economy now, rather than sustainable strength.”
If the jobs report were distributed on Friday, she’d be looking at the diffusion, or the distribution of jobs across industries.
“There’s a lot of nuances below the headline number in our economy right now, which is why paying attention to a lot of indicators is more important than ever,” Indeed’s Shrivastava said.
In this article on Seeking Alpha we list all the information we do know about the labor market. The link is in the show notes section.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently removed an app called ICEBlock, which enabled users to monitor and report the location of immigration enforcement officers, after pressure from the Trump administration.
The app was designed as a community resource to let individuals share and track sightings of immigration enforcement.
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, argued that the app endangered federal agents by exposing their activities and could increase the risk of assault against ICE officials.
“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said in a statement to NBC News on Thursday. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”
USA Rare Earth (NASDAQ:USAR) is up 7% in premarket action after jumping 23% on Thursday.
This happened after CEO Barbara Humpton told CNBC that the company was “in close communication” with the Trump administration.
“This is a field where it will not be a zero sum game,” Humpton commented regarding the rare earth supply chain. “It’s going to take a lot of players to build out this marketplace.”
“What we’re doing is keeping the administration informed of our own plans,” she said.
This comes after the government recently secured stakes in other prominent rare earth and lithium suppliers, like MP Materials (MP) and Lithium Americas (LAC).
USAR gets a quant rating of Hold on Seeking Alpha, with the highest factor grades given to growth and momentum.
What’s Trending on Seeking Alpha:
Tesla (TSLA) shareholder group calls on investors to reject Elon Musk’s $1T pay plan
YouTube to carry NBCUniversal’s full portfolio under new long-term distribution pact
Google VP says company plans to spin off life sciences unit Verily: report
Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the green. Crude oil is up 1.3% at $61/barrel. Bitcoin is down 0.3% at $120,000. Gold is up 0.1% at $3,861.
The FTSE 100 is up 0.5% and the DAX is up 0.1%. The market in China remains closed for a holiday.
The biggest movers for the day premarket: Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM) +12% – Shares jumped after the company announced a partnership with AI answer engine Perplexity to integrate AI-powered tools and boost discoverability on its video platform.
On today’s economic calendar:
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1:30 pm Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan participates in a moderated conversation before the 10th Annual Conference of International Economics, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the University of Houston and the Banco de México.
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1:40 pm Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson speaks on “U.S. Economic Outlook and the Fed’s Monetary Policy Framework” before the Drexel Economic Forum.
And finally it’s news quiz day. I’ll leave a link to the quiz in the show notes section.
