Breaking Free From Debt: A Money Management Guide to Financial Recovery

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose modestly last week but remains at healthy levels.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims rose by 6,000 to 225,000 for the week of Sept. 28. It was slightly more than the 221,000 analysts were expecting.

The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of weekly volatility, fell by 750 to 224,250.

Applications for jobless benefits are widely considered representative of U.S. layoffs in a given week.

Recent labor market data has signaled that high interest rates may finally be taking a toll on the labor market.

In response to weakening employment data and receding consumer prices, the Federal Reserve last month cut its benchmark interest rate by a half of a percentage point as the central bank shifts its focus from taming inflation toward supporting the job market. The Fed’s goal is to achieve a rare “soft landing,” whereby it curbs inflation without causing a recession.

It was the Fed’s first rate cut in four years after a series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 pushed the federal funds rate to a two-decade high of 5.3%.

Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.

During the first four months of 2024, applications for jobless benefits averaged just 213,000 a week before rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, supporting the notion that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.

U.S. employers added a modest 142,000 jobs in August, up from a paltry 89,000 in July, but well below the January-June monthly average of nearly 218,000. September’s jobs report is due out Friday.

Last month, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total was also considered evidence that the job market has been slowing steadily, compelling the Fed to start cutting interest rates.

Thursday’s report said that the total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits was down by 1,000 to about 1.83 million for the week of Sept. 21.

Separately on Thursday, some retailers said they are ramping up hiring for the holiday season, but fewer seasonal employees are expected to be taken on this year.

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting lower, as crude oil prices continue to climb. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% in early trading Thursday following a shaky run where worries about worsening tensions in the Middle East knocked the index off its record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 192 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was off 0.2%. Oil prices rose about another 2% as the world continues to wait to see how Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack from Tuesday. Treasury yields rose after a report suggested the number of layoffs across the country remain relatively low.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Wall Street tipped toward small losses early Thursday ahead of some labor market reports that will be closely analyzed by the Federal Reserve as it shifts its focus from inflation toward supporting the broader economy.

Futures for the S&P 500 were 0.1% lower before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%.

The dominant question hanging over Wall Street has been whether the job market can keep holding up after the Federal Reserve earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high. The Fed was trying to press the brakes hard enough on the economy to stamp out high inflation.

Stocks are near records in large part on the belief that the U.S. economy will continue to grow now that the Federal Reserve has begun cutting interest rates. The Fed last month lowered its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years and indicated more cuts will arrive through next year.

Coming later Thursday is the Labor Department’s unemployment benefits report, which broadly represents the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week. Layoffs have remained historically low, though started ticking higher beginning in May.

Treasury yields rose after a report Wednesday by ADP Research indicated that hiring by U.S. employers outside the government may have been stronger last month than expected.

That could auger well for the government’s more comprehensive report on the U.S. job market due out Friday, the first since the Fed cut its benchmark lending rate by half a point last month.

Levi shares tumbled 12% in premarket trading after the maker of blue jeans came up short on sales projections and trimmed its fourth-quarter outlook. CEO Michelle Gass said the company was working to address areas of underperformance, including “strategic alternatives” for its Dockers brand.

In German at midday, Germany’s DAX shed 0.3% while the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.5%. In London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.4%.

The U.S. dollar gained against the Japanese yen as officials indicated that conditions were not conducive for an interest rate hike.

That helped push Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index higher. It gained 2% to 38,552.06, while the dollar traded at 146.67 Japanese yen, up from 146.41 yen late Wednesday.

A weaker yen is an advantage for major export manufacturers like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp.

The dollar had been trading around 142 yen after the ruling Liberal Democrats chose Shigeru Ishiba to head the party and succeed Fumio Kishida as prime minister. Ishiba, who took office on Tuesday, had expressed support for the central bank’s recent moves to raise its near-zero benchmark interest rate, which stands at around 0.25%. That led traders to bet that the yen would gain in value.

But after a meeting between Ishiba and Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda, both officials indicated that the central bank did not view further rate hikes as suitable for the economy at this time. That prompted a flurry of selling of yen, which benefits big export manufacturers.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.5% to 22,113.51 as investors sold shares to lock in profits after the benchmark roared 6.2% higher a day earlier on a wave of investor enthusiasm over recent announcements from Beijing about measures to rev up the slowing Chinese economy.

With Shanghai and other markets in China closed for a weeklong holiday, trading has crowded into Hong Kong. Markets in South Korea and Taiwan also were closed on Thursday. India’s Sensex fell 2.1%.

Oil prices rose again as the world waited to see how Israel will respond to Tuesday’s missile attack from Iran.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.09 to $71.19 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was up $1 to $74.90 per barrel.

Israel is not a major producer of oil, but Iran is, and a worry is that a broadening war could affect neighboring countries that are also integral to the flow of crude.

Also early Thursday, the euro fell to $1.1042 from $1.1047.

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index posted modest gains Monday, while U.S. markets also rose near the end of the day to kick off the week in the green.

Stocks were down earlier in the afternoon in part because of comments from U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, said Anish Chopra, managing director at Portfolio Management Corp.

Powell said Monday that more interest rate cuts are coming, but not quickly.

“We’re looking at it as a process that will play out over some time,” he said at a conference in Nashville, Tenn.

“It’ll depend on the data, the speed at which we actually go.”

The Fed isn’t in a hurry to cut its key interest rate, said Chopra, as it weighs the upside risks to inflation and the downside risks to the job market.

“Inflation could go up, it could go down, but they believe that if the data remains consistent with what they’ve seen, there will be two more rate cuts coming, but they will be smaller,” said Chopra.

Though the central bank has already signalled it expects to make two more quarter-percentage-point cuts this year, market watchers had been hoping for another outsized cut before the end of the year, he said.

“So I think Powell’s comments from this afternoon disappointed the markets and investors in the sense that if they were anticipating bigger rate cuts, that’s not the news they got.”

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 17.15 points at 42,330.15. The S&P 500 index was up 24.31 points at 5,762.48, while the Nasdaq composite was up 69.58 points at 18,189.17.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 41.31 points at 23,998.13.

At the end of this week, markets will get the latest report on the U.S. labour market, perhaps the most closely watched economic data right now after a couple of softer-than-expected reports prompted fears that higher rates were having too hard an impact on jobs.

If the report is weaker than expected this time, that could change the Fed’s thinking around its interest rate trajectory, said Chopra.

However, the Fed’s next rate decision is in November, he noted, so there’s still another labour report after this week’s release for the central bank to weigh.

Overseas, Asian markets had a frenzied start to the week, with Japanese markets down 4.8 per cent while stocks in China saw their best day in almost 16 years.

Japanese markets sank because investors are questioning whether the new government will be supportive of higher interest rates, said Chopra.

Meanwhile, Chinese markets rallied on the news of more stimulus to the country’s economy, he said.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.93 cents US, according to XE.com, compared with 74.08 cents US on Friday.

The November crude oil contract was down a penny at US$68.17 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was up two cents at US$2.92 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$8.70 at US$2,659.40 an ounceand the December copper contract was down five cents at US$4.55 a pound.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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