Day Ahead: Top 3 Things to Watch

Investing.com – Here’s a preview of the top 3 things that could rock markets tomorrow.

1. It’s Jobs Friday!

Labor market numbers over the past few days have done little to instill confidence. The for September fell short of estimates. climbed to a one-year high. But it could all turn around on Friday, with the release of nonfarm payrolls at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 PM GMT.)

Economists’ forecast that the U.S. economy created about in last month, up from 130,000 in August, while the is expected to remain steady at 3.7%.

Some on Wall Street, however, are expecting an even lower nonfarm payroll print and have pointed fingers at slowing employment growth in the services sector.

“We forecast a below-trend 125,000 increase in nonfarm payroll employment during September, likely driven by another weak month of service employment growth,” Nomura said in a recent email.

Wage growth, meanwhile, is expected to slow to a pace of 0.3% from 0.4% a month earlier, though remain steady at

Trade data will also be focus, with the U.S. expected to have widened to $54.50 billion in August from 54 billion in July.

2. Oil Rig Count Rolls In

The latest rig count data due Friday will offer clues on the pace of domestic crude production, which has remained at near-record highs at 12.4 million barrels a day.

Data last week showed the operating in the U.S. fell by 6 to 713.

The weekly rig count is an important barometer for the drilling industry and serves as a proxy for oil production and oil services demand.

prices fell 19 cents to settle at $52.45 on Thursday amid ongoing fears that slowing global economic growth will weigh on oil demand.

3. Fed Powell Takes to the Stage

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to deliver opening remarks at the Fed Listens event in Washington, where the topic will be “Perspectives on Maximum Employment and Price Stability.”

The speech comes as the odds of an October Fed rate cut have topped 90%, according to Investing.com’s , following a spate of underwhelming U.S. economic data, including a lower-than-expected non-manufacturing ISM print on Thursday.

“The risk raised by the downside in today’s ISM non-manufacturing report is that the service sector may decelerating, pointing to a potential inflection in what has been to-date one of the key pillars of US economic growth,” Morgan Stanley said in a note.

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