Consumer confidence declines and JOLTS data weakensđš
Fixed income markets went into a bit of a reality check yesterday with US data hitting a speed-bump suddenly, as JOLTS jobs data and consumer confidence both came in well below expectations. Job openings came in at a ~4 standard deviation miss below at a 8,827k figure for July vs 9,500k expected, a significant drop from an already downwardly revised 9,165k in June. Job losses were concentrated in professional services. Furthermore, the quit rate fell from 2.4% to 2.3%, the lowest levels since January back in-line to the pre-pandemic levels, with the largest drop in accommodations and food services which cratered from 5.1% to 3.9%. Powell's favored job openings-to-unemployed individuals declined from 1.6 to 1.5 for the lowest level since Sep 2021, which is still well above the 1.2 level indicative of a health job market, but the rest of the data print has significantly raised expectations for a lower NFP print this Friday.
The Conference Board consumer confidence also came in weaker at 106.1 vs 116 expected, an 8 point drop versus the the revised figure last month, with weakness spread across both the present situation as well as the expectations components. Furthermore, the labor differential reading dropped from 32.4 to 26.2, the lowest print since April 2021 and confirming the weakness in the JOLTS data.
