The stock exchanges in New York close the doors for Labor Day on Monday. North Korea’s latest core trial led to global nervousness on global financial markets. Wall Street may also respond on Tuesday. The major benchmarks closed trading on Friday with slight gains. Investors, among other things, weighed a disappointing report about the US labor market.
All three major indexes ended August with gains. Dow Jones and S&P500 added 0.25% and 0.95% respectively last month, thus marking the fifth consecutive month of gain. Tech heavy NASDAQ was green for the 9th consecutive month, with increase of around 6,428.66 points, a recorded in August. The information sector is best represented lately, and the worst performing for the last month is the energy sector. Stock exchanges in Europe also ended with rallies, and strong data from China brought a green session to the Asian markets as well.
The dollar posted a rise against the basket of currencies on Friday after non-farm employment data were seen as supporting a further interest rate increase by the end of the year. Originally, the dollar was sold out after the data showed that in August the US economy added 156,000 jobs, with an estimated 180,000. Moderate wage growth, as well as a one-tenth rise in unemployment to 4.4%, were also heavy on the exchange rate.
The dollar index fell 0.55% after the data, but offset the losses and ended the trading session with an increase to 92.83 points. Losses against the euro were also reversed at the end of Friday’s trading, the single currency traded 0.39% cheaper than green money, to a price of 1.1862 dollars per euro.
The Wall Street investors’ agenda this week provides information about the US service sector, factory orders and labor productivity. The Federal Reserve publishes the so-called Beige Book, which gives insight into the state of the US economy.
In terms of business results, technology group Hewlett Packard Enterprises and supermarket chain Kroger are set to release their earnings reports.
