This was a short week due to Friday’s Independence Day holiday. The standout data point of the week was the jobs report: June’s nonfarm payrolls added just 57,000 jobs, well below the expected 110,000 and the weakest reading since February’s negative figure, with May and April revised downward by a combined 74,000 jobs; the unemployment rate stood at4.2%, and wages rose 3.5% year-over-year, in line with expectations. The ADP report showed just 98,000 private-sector jobs, below the expected 110,000, with more than half of the hires concentrated in small businesses, while the JOLTS report surprised on the upside with 7.594 million job openings, the highest level since 2024. The market interpreted this combination as a sign of a gradual cooling rather than an abrupt deterioration in the labor market, leading to a reduction in the probability of a Fed rate hike in July from 29%to 18%, according to CME Fed Watch.

Other indicators this week reinforced this assessment of an economy that is “neither too cold nor too hot”: consumer confidence remained stable at moderate levels, although there was a deterioration in the perception of the current situation, and more respondents described jobs as “hard to find” than at anytime in the past five years, and manufacturing activity continued to expand for the sixth consecutive month, albeit at a somewhat slower pace, with price pressures still persisting.