NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are holding relatively steady on Friday following a mixed report on the U.S. job market that analysts said may not change much for financial markets.The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in early trading and remained on track for a modest gain for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 14 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields rose following the U.S. jobs report, which showed employers hired fewer workers last month than economists expected. Even though hiring was less than half of December’s rate, the jobs report also included encouraging nuggets for workers: The unemployment rate eased, and workers saw bigger gains in average wages than economists expected.Taken all together, market watchers said the report likely won’t change the Federal Reserve’s mind much when it comes to interest rates, particularly when one-off events like California’s wildfires during the month may have skewed the results.“We think the Fed is likely to be cautious about reading too much into today’s report,” said Lindsay Rosner, head of multi sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.The Fed began cutting its main interest rate in September in order to relax the pressure on the economy and job market, but it warned at the end of the year that it may cut fewer times in 2025 than it earlier expected given worries about inflation staying stubbornly high. Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks and other investments.The hope on Wall Street had been for Friday’s report to be neither so weak that it raised worries about a cracking U.S. economy nor so strong that it implied upward pressure on inflation.For Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, the jobs report did nothing to change his forecast for the Fed to cut the federal funds rate just once in 2025. That’s a touch more conservative than many traders on Wall Street, who collectively see a nearly 50% chance that the Fed will cut at least twice, according to data from CME Group. Of course, some traders are also betting on the possibility for zero cuts.Wren says financial markets could stay shaky in the near term, not only because of uncertainty about interest rates but also about President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other unknowns around the world.After rocking financial markets around the world at the start of this week, worries about a potentially punishing global trade war have eased a bit after Trump gave 30-day reprieves for tariffs on both Mexico and Canada. But “Europe might be next, and even if the final outcome is benign, uncertainty could weigh on global investment,” Bank of America economists wrote in a BofA Global Research report.In the meantime, stocks of big U.S. companies continue to swing as
Ven. Feb 7th, 2025
