Daily summary: cooling jobs market locks in a September Fed rate cut 💲

Wall Street ended the session lower. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones lost 0.55% each, while the Nasdaq fell 0.3%. Declines were driven mainly by recession fears after weak U.S. labor market data.

Today’s NFP release came in far below expectations. Employment growth in August was just +22k versus expectations of +75k and +79k in July.

Following the release, the U.S. dollar weakened sharply and is down 0.65% on the daily interval. EURUSD, meanwhile, is up 0.75%. Markets also began to price in a full 25bp rate cut at the Fed’s September meeting, along with further cuts in October and December.

In addition, data for the previous two months were revised downward in total. June was revised to −13k (from +14k), and July to +79k (from +73k). Overall, June and July employment was 21k lower than previously reported.

Similarly weak labor market data came from Canada, weighing on CAD. On the other hand, the Swiss franc and New Zealand dollar performed strongly today.

Gold gained nearly 1.4%, reaching $3,600/oz for the first time in history.

Crude oil fell about 2.5%, hitting two-week lows amid Saudi Arabia’s push to increase supply at Sunday’s OPEC+ meeting and the aforementioned recession concerns.

Broadcom reported a 22% y/y increase in revenue to $16bn and a 63% jump in its AI segment ($5.2bn). It also secured a $10bn AI contract from OpenAI, sending its share price up as much as 14%.

The European Commission fined Alphabet (GOOGL.US) €2.95bn for anticompetitive practices; Google announced it will appeal the ruling.

European markets and the WSE ended in the red; however, positive sentiment appeared in the Polish energy sector amid a proposal to freeze energy prices for Q4 2025 and introduce a heating voucher for households.

The cryptocurrency market showed moderate optimism. Bitcoin rose 0.2% today, while Ethereum fell nearly 0.7%.