Wall Street's Sharp Critique of Nonfarm Payrolls: This Report Is "Extremely Terrible"

Odaily News: U.S. July nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly decreased by 23,000, significantly missing market expectations. Although seasonal factors and the fading of the World Cup dividend disrupted the data, this still notably weakens the Federal Reserve's momentum for a September rate hike, shifting market focus to next week's CPI.

Despite the "dismal" surface data, the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 4.1%. This seemingly contradictory phenomenon is actually attributed to a cumulative 0.7 percentage point decline in the labor force participation rate since the beginning of the year.

Analysts are divided in their interpretation of this "terrible" report. Thomas Ryan, Senior Economist at Capital Economics, stated bluntly that although the current weakness has not yet shown up in broader indicators, it is sufficient to prompt Fed officials to reassess the health of the labor market and reduce their willingness to further tighten monetary policy in the near term.

In the face of this report, which Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, called "extremely terrible," the capital markets demonstrated typical contrarian logic. As traders bet that the rate hike process would stop here, U.S. stock futures rose accordingly, and Treasury yields collectively declined. According to data from CME Group's tools, the market-implied probability of a September rate hike has rapidly fallen from 55% on Thursday to 44%.