Good Friday is next week and the markets will be closed as usual. However, what will be unusual is that the closure of financial exchanges in the US and other parts of the world is taking place, as the government is about to launch a key employment report in the midst of a pandemic.
Why is the stock market closed while federal data is being published? That’s because Good Friday, this year on April 2, is not a federal holiday.
It is quite rare for the government to release an important part of the data, because market participants are not able to react to it.
And it has only happened 12 times since 1980, according to Dow Jones market data, the last time it took place in 2015, and before that it took place in 2012 and 2010.
|
Year |
Data on which non-agricultural wages were released on Good Friday |
|
1980 |
April 4 |
|
1983 |
1 April |
|
1985 |
April 5 |
|
1988 |
1 April |
|
1994 |
1 April |
|
1996 |
April 5 |
|
1999 |
April 2 |
|
2007 |
April 6 |
|
2010 |
April 2 |
|
2012 |
April 6 |
|
2015 |
April 3 |
|
2021 |
April 2 (scheduled) |
| Source: Dow Jones Market Data |
The employment report is probably the grandfather of economic reports, outside of GDP, but its significance has been amplified by the pandemic, especially as market participants look for more evidence on the magnitude of the return per year in one of the the worst public health crises of a century.
The latest employment report will come as investors are unclear about the extent to which the labor market and / or economy could fully recover, or even overheat, which could force the Federal Reserve to act quickly to reducing inflation, vaccine launches and $ 1.9 trillion in tax aid help support the economy.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has tried to pacify the nervous markets by stressing that the central bank will take a slow approach to normalization policy, which is expected in a few years.
National Securities chief market strategist Art Hogan told MarketWatch that it may be a good thing for the job ratio to appear with the market closing.
“Having the weekend to digest this news and gauge what this means for economic expansion, it can be a good thing for the market,” Hogan said.
One year ago, US non-farm payrolls fell by 663,000 in March, while the unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high of 8.5% from 8.1%.
The March 2021 employment report is expected to show a gain of 655,000 based on estimates, after wage data showed that unemployment fell to 6.2% as 379,000 jobs were added. work in February, marking the largest such gain in the last four months.
It may take a while to pause for financial markets, says Hogan, because the economy still has a long way to go to achieve a healthy recovery.
“We still have nine million people in the workforce. We will need some levels of success to reach pre-pandemic levels, “the analyst said, estimating that the economy will need to average about 750,000 jobs a month to reach post-COVID levels.
“It would take us two years, so we have to start getting those numbers,” he said.
Friday, Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
the S&P 500 SPX index,
Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
and the low-capitalization Russell 2000 RUT index,
ended abruptly above, after a hectic week of trading that ended with a flourishing of the late session.
To be sure, it will be difficult to say how strong the trading action could be on the Monday after Good Friday, as a number of global exchanges will be closed in respect of Easter Monday.