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The first full week of the new year is set to come to an end tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t big things happening that you should be paying attention to especially during the morning session. So what are some of the top things to watch in the news today?
Business Inventories
First, business inventories get released for November. The Commerce Department is set to release wholesale inventories. According to economists, the figures are expected to be flat compared to October’s report. If you forgot what those figures were from October, inventories came in at $675.6 million.
That was 1.1% higher compared to the same time in 2018. The biggest differences on seasonality were drug inventories. Those increased by 4.2% compared to September. October also was a point where inventories compared to sales increased to the highest levels since 2016. This will be reported at 10 AM EST.
Employment
November employment came in with 266,000 jobs being added to the US economy. The Department of Labor will give December’s numbers at 8:30 AM EST. There are some 160,000 nonfarm payrolls expected to grow according to economists polled by Dow Jones.
Average job growth came in around 180,000 per month during the first 11 months of last year. This is a big report. It could mark the 11th straight month where unemployment would be under 4%. Manufacturing employment helped boost November’s figures. That was due in part to the end of the strike by the United Automobile Workers. Is this already baked in or are we in for a surprise?
Wages
The Labor Department reports changed is wages tomorrow as well. Last month’s hourly wages grew by 3.1% over the past year. Economists are expecting the same for December, which would represent growth of 0.03% on a month over month basis. Something else to note was that in November, the figures showed an average hourly rate of $28.29. That was a jump of $0.07 above the month prior.
