The government shutdown has now dragged on for more than 5 weeks, which means it is officially the longest on record. It also means that the October jobs report scheduled to be released on Nov. 7 was delayed indefinitely. This is the second consecutive month that the report has failed to be released on time, and there are doubts as to whether it will be released at all.
However, some clues may be gleaned from the release of the ADP nonfarm payroll report on Wednesday. It was found that the economy added 42,000 jobs, which was slightly more than the expected increase of 32,000. It was significantly higher than last month’s report when the economy lost 29,000 jobs. Whether this is a sign that the economy will continue to teeter on the edge of growth instead of moving toward recession won’t be known for several more weeks as jobs reports are often revised.
A couple of other important reports were released this week in the form of the ISM Manufacturing PMI and the ISM Services PMI. The ISM Manufacturing PMI was released Monday and came in at 48.7, which was roughly in line with the projected 49.4. However, it was slightly lower than last month’s 49.1. Regardless, it indicates that manufacturing is in a minor contraction.
The ISM Services PMI was released on Wednesday and came in at 52.4, which was much higher than the projected 50.7. It was also higher than last month’s reading of exactly 50. This continues a pattern established over the past several months in which the pace of manufacturing declines while demand for services continues to grow.
Also on Friday, the University of Michigan released its consumer sentiment and inflation expectations data. The preliminary numbers found that consumer sentiment was 50.3 while respondents believed that inflation would be at 4.7 percent 12 months from now.
The S&P 500 was down more than 1.8 percent this week to close at 6,728. That was a loss of 129 points for an index that has seemingly been making or matching yearly and all-time highs on a weekly basis. On Monday morning, the market made its high of the week at 6,857 before spending the next few days in freefall. It hit its low on Friday morning when it bottomed out at 6,634.
The Dow also lost more than 1 percent over the past five trading days closing at 46,987. This represents a loss of 527 points for an index that has had few losing weeks since April and is still challenging to meet or break all-time highs. Monday morning, the index peaked at 47,489 and would make its low of the week Friday morning when it fell to 46,530.
The Nasdaq also finished the first week of November lower. It fell by 4.1 percent on fears of a potential AI bubble dragging on some of the market’s top companies. The index finished the week at 25,059, which was more than 1,000 points lower than it began on Monday. The Nasdaq made a weekly high of 26,023 on Monday. On Friday, the market made its weekly low of 24,631.
In international news, the Swiss government announced early Monday that inflation was down 0.3 percent over the past month. Later Monday, Australia announced that the nation’s key interest rate would remain at 3.6 percent. Thursday, Great Britain announced that it would also retain the status quo by keeping its key interest rate at 4 percent. Finally, on Friday, Canada announced that its unemployment rate was 6.9 percent while the economy added 66,000 jobs over the past month.
If the government shutdown ends, United States inflation data will be released on Thursday. On Friday, retail sales and price change data will be released assuming that the government is back open for business. However, there is little reason to believe that this will happen. Internationally, Australia is set to release unemployment change data while Great Britain will release GDP figures.