ZFX: Jobs data boosted sentiment amid cautious market

Stocks in Asia Pacific mostly traded lower as China-US tensions has triggered sell-off pressure in the markets on Friday. The US President Trump issued executive orders, which ban the American firms to deal with the Tencent, the Chinese giant tech firm.

Overnight on Wall Street, market sentiment remained positive as investors were still looking forward to the new economic stimulus package from the US, and the initial jobless claims last week totaled 1.186 million, lowest since the pandemic began, and also far lower than the market expectation of 1.4 million.

The three major Wall Street indexes all rose, of which the Nasdaq has jumped for the seventh consecutive trading day, breaking the 11000 level amid the strength of tech stocks.

Although there is not much progress of the relief bill from the Congress and the White House, the leaders of both sides pointed out that they may make the deal in the short term.

Gold price is still the market focus so far, reaching another new high near $2070 mark on Thursday. China-US tensions are continually weighing on sentiment, boosting the safe haven demand, especially under weak dollar situation.

ZFX analyst Jacob Leung said that, the tensions are getting worse, however, investors mainly hedge this issue by holding gold. For the global stock markets, such bearish factor has not really “priced-in”.

On Friday, investors await the big data at 8:30 a.m. EST, Nonfarm Payrolls, for July. It is expected that 1.5 million jobs were added.

ZFX analyst Jacob Leung said that, it is not a great number. However, the ADP experience on Wednesday showed that we should not be over optimistic. The market trend, mode and theme may change after the figures. Risk management would be very important in the short term.