US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks gain following weak US payrolls report

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US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks gain following weak US payrolls report

US White House NEC Director Hassett says the jobs report was about expected, data shows that the consumer is very strong

UK Defence Minister Streeting says Russian President Putin's nuclear rhetoric is extremely irresponsible

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OPEN: US indices opened the final trading session of the week in the green, and continues on the strength seen in equity futures following the soft US jobs report; recapping, the headline printed 29k, way short of the expected 90k, and fell from the prior 133k. Unemployment rate rose to 4.2% (exp. & prev. 4.1%), with the participation rate also rising. Following the data set, Treasuries and spot gold rose, while the Dollar fell, to the benefit of G10 FX peers, with the former two paring most of their post-data strength. As such, money market pricing has become even less likely for a 25bps in October, with now just a 17% chance of such a move. Back to FX, Aussie is the current outperformer and the Loonie lags and is likely weighed on by weakness of USD 3-4/bbl in the crude complex. Behind the weakness is that the EU discussed a proposal to release diesel from stockpiles, while France proposed a release of diesel and crude stocks.

Sectors are predominantly in the green, with Consumer Discretionary and Materials leading, with the former benefiting from gains in Tesla (+4.5%) following strong quarterly delivery numbers. Health and Energy are the only sectors in the red, with the latter weighed on by the moves in energy. In the memory space, Western Digital and Seagate are plummeting amid reports that Toshiba is to double AI data centre HDD capacity by FY27 with USD 380mln expansion as AI storage demand surges.

Ahead, the calendar is pretty thin with Factory Orders and Fed's Logan at the top of the hour, followed by the weekly Baker Hughes Rig Count and Scope Ratings credit review on USA after-hours.

STOCK SPECIFICS

  • Toshiba to double AI data centre HDD capacity by FY27
  • Vylor (VYLR) will join SPX on Oct. 1st
  • Twilio (TWLO) will join SPX on Oct. 6th
  • Moderna (MRNA) will join NDX BMO on Oct. 9th
  • Nike (NKE) rev. light & sees FY sales decline w/ weakness in Greater China, sportswear & Jordan Brand; restructuring plans & further layoffs added to concerns.
  • ON Semiconductor (ON) agreed to acquire Synaptics (SYNA) for $123/shr in cash; ON expects immediate accretion to adj. EPS.
  • Amazon (AMZN) seeks to offload & lease back c. $8bln of NVDA Grace Blackwell chips.
  • Tesla (TSLA) Q3 total deliveries 486,532 (exp. 456,896); Q3 total production 464,391 (exp. 486,761)
  • Rivian (RIVN) reaffirmed its 2026 delivery range guidance of 65,000 - 70,000; delivered a record 19,248 vehicles in Q3 (exp. 18,001 vehicles).

Context

A payrolls miss of this size, headline a fraction of consensus with the unemployment rate ticking up alongside rising participation, fits the classic bad-news-is-good-news sequence: the front end rallies, the dollar softens against G10, gold catches a bid, and equities open firmer as the market reads weaker labour data as licence for more easing rather than as a growth scare. That reflex holds so long as the print is read as cooling rather than deterioration; the distinction that has mattered in past episodes is whether the weakness stays confined to hiring while consumption and earnings hold up, or starts to feed through to demand. Here the transmission is already visible in the cross-asset tape: Treasuries and gold pared much of the initial pop while rate-cut pricing for the next meeting firmed only modestly, which is consistent with a market that has largely pre-positioned for the easing path and treats one soft print as confirmation rather than a regime shift. The idiosyncratic threads deserve separating from the macro: crude's drop on mooted European stockpile releases is a supply-side story weighing on Energy and the Loonie, and the memory names selling off on a competitor's capacity expansion is a market-share story, not an AI-demand one, given the same headline cites surging storage demand. Tesla's delivery beat lifting Discretionary is the sort of single-name driver that can flatter the sector read on a thin-data day. The follow-ons are the secondary releases and scheduled Fed commentary later in the session, then the next inflation print, which historically carries more weight than a single payrolls miss in confirming the cutting path; whether other officials echo the dovish read is the tell.

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