North American Morning Briefing: Dow Set to Open Down Ahead of More Key Jobs Data

OPENING CALL

Stocks looked set to mostly rise on Thursday, with investors betting that weak job openings data has made it all-but-certain that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month.

President Trump's push for greater influence over the Fed faces a test Thursday, with a Senate hearing to confirm Trump ally Stephen Miran as a Fed governor.

Meanwhile the Fed's Bank of New York President John Williams and Chicago President Austan Goolsbee will speak at events.

Late Wednesday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to quickly hear its appeal of a ruling that rejected the president's reciprocal tariffs.

Earnings from chip giant Broadcom, due after the bell, will offer fresh insight into the AI boom, after Nvidia predicted cooler growth last week.

Further from home, Chinese stocks stumbled after a recent rally, in a possible correction underpinned by concerns that regulators could move to tame excess market moves.

Stocks to Watch

American Eagle Outfitters expected positive same-store sales in the second half, boosted by celebrity advertising campaigns. Shares jumped 23% premarket.

Figma's earnings missed analysts' estimates and shares fell 15% premarket.

Asana beat Wall Street expectations on its top and bottom line. The stock rose 8.9%.

Credo Technology's adjusted earnings beat analysts' estimates as revenue rose 274% from a year earlier. Shares rose 13% premarket.

C3.ai fell 11% after forecasting revenue below analysts' calls.

GitLab fell 8.4% after revenue missed analysts' estimates and it issued disappointing third-quarter earnings and revenue guidance.

Earnings at Hewlett Packard Enterprise were better than expected and network revenue jumped 54%, getting a lift from HPE's acquisition of Juniper Networks in July. Shares rose 3.2%.

Salesforce's guidance was at the lower end of Wall Street expectations. Shares fell 6.6%.

Watch For:

Weekly Jobless Claims; ADP National Employment Report for August; Trade for July; Revised Productivity and Costs for 2Q; ISM Report on Business Services PMI for August; Canada Trade for July; Speeches from Fed's John Williams and Austan Goolsbee; Earnings from Copart, Lululemon Athletica, Samsara, Guidewire Software, Docusign, Ciena, and UiPath.

Today's Top Headlines/Must Reads:

-Shrouded in Mystery, Kim's Young Daughter Softens His Image in China

-The Year's Buzziest Deals Are Corporate Breakups

MARKET WRAPS

Forex:

The dollar edged higher as investors turned their focus to labor market data for clues on the pace of expected Fed rate cuts.

ING said, while the prospect of weak employment data and the Fed resuming rate cuts at the September 17 meeting would usually be negative for the dollar, the currency could find some support from seasonal factors.

Short-term U.S.-eurozone interest-rate differentials justified a higher euro versus the dollar, ING said.

"We remain of the view that the euro is set for a return above $1.170."

Sterling recovered but was still at risk of renewed falls in the coming months, ING said.

Bonds:

Treasury yields inched lower.

"Yesterday's soft U.S. labour market data drove bond yields lower as the market looks for the Federal Reserve to cut rates in September," Danske Bank said.

Energy:

Oil prices fell, extending the previous session's losses on concerns that OPEC+ members might consider releasing more barrels in October.

Benchmarks dropped Wednesday following a Reuters report that the alliance would consider boosting output further at a policy meeting this week, contrary to widespread market expectations.

"While insiders emphasized no final decision yet to be made, the signal was enough to deflate prices in a market prone to overreaction," Pepperstone said.

Meanwhile, investors await the latest U.S. stockpile report by the EIA due Thursday for insights into demand trends in the world's largest crude consumer.

DNB Carnegie said global spare oil capacity would quickly erode if OPEC+ decides to unwind its second tranche of output cuts totaling 1.66 million barrels a day.

If that happened, it would leave little room for other producers to increase output in response to sudden demand surges or supply disruptions, making the market more vulnerable to shocks.

Metals:

Gold futures fell, pulling back from record highs on profit taking but the precious metal remained up nearly 4% on week on expectations of a September interest-rate cut, tariffs raising costs and rising pessimism around market growth, Pepperstone said.

Gold has become a barometer of decreasing confidence in the economic and financial outlook, it added, saying inflows into gold assets have broadened beyond just exchange traded funds, and into major hedge funds and central banks.

Base Metals

LME three-month copper and aluminum fell on risk-off sentiment, Britannia Global Markets said.

Chinese downstream copper consumption was reported as sluggish, and the new U.S. tariff on Indian copper adds another layer of geopolitical risk, potentially disrupting global trade flows, it added.

Iron Ore Price

Recent cuts to China's crude steel output appear weighted toward scrap-based electric arc furnaces, lessening the impact on iron-ore demand, Morgan Stanley said, expecting iron ore around $100/metric ton in 4Q 2025 and 1Q 2026.

Lithium Prices

Citi was bearish on lithium prices for the next six months and said recent supply cuts were likely temporary, and a sustained market surplus should pull prices lower once more.

It had a 6-12 month target on spodumene SC6 of $800/ton, and over the same period expected lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide around $9,000/ton and $8,750/ton, respectively.

TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES

Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison Is Prepared for a Housing Rebound

The home improvement market may be in a slump, but Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison isn't deterred.

Rather than succumb to the market's pessimism over Americans' lack of enthusiasm for home renovation, Ellison has been preparing the retail chain for an eventual inflection in demand. That includes insulating Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe's from the bite of new tariffs, and expanding the company's reach into the lucrative professional contractor market. This year alone, Lowe's announced two billion-dollar acquisitions of companies that cater to the pros.

xAI's CFO Steps Down, the Latest in a String of Executive Departures

The chief financial officer of xAI has left the company, people familiar with the matter said, the latest high-profile departure from Elon Musk's artificial-intelligence company.

Mike Liberatore had been the company's CFO since April and left around the end of July, the people said. The reasons for his departure couldn't be learned.

Google Ruling Shows Antitrust Tools Struggle to Keep Up With Tech Markets

U.S. antitrust enforcers have spent years strategizing how to bring lawsuits against the nation's biggest tech companies, with the goal of restraining their power and promoting competition.

Tuesday's ruling imposing light penalties on Google highlights fundamental challenges with that approach, even when a judge finds a company has engaged in illegal monopolization.

Amazon Pauses Delivery Fleet Redeployments After Outcry Over Repair Costs

Amazon.com is pausing a controversial plan to redistribute its fleet of delivery vans after encountering widespread resistance from owners of the third-party delivery companies that operate them.

The e-commerce giant operates a program in which small delivery businesses-called delivery service partners-help it deliver packages to customers nationwide. Most of them lease the familiar blue-gray branded vans from a fleet manager selected by Amazon and are contractually obligated to pay for repairs before returning the vehicles to the company for redeployment.

A weak August jobs report will tee up the Fed to reduce interest rates. A worse one may spur even more cuts.

Is the August jobs report the biggest in years? Probably not, but another tepid increase in hiring is sure to cement a reduction in U.S. interest rates this month - and possibly more cuts after that.

Wall Street is certainly expecting a dull jobs report. Forecasters predict a small 75,000 increase in new jobs, with the unemployment rate rising a notch to a nearly four-year high of 4.3%.

Army's Contract With Startup Will Give Soldiers Battlefield AI

American soldiers are starting to carry artificial intelligence in their pockets and rucksacks, the result of a $98.9 million contract between the U.S. Army and a San Francisco startup.

The contract with TurbineOne reflects twin realities of the modern battlefield: Drones and AI have accelerated the speed of combat to a blistering pace, and ubiquitous signal jamming makes it difficult to send and receive data at the front lines.

Republican Attorneys General Accuse Net-Zero Standards Setters of Running Climate Cartel

Republican attorneys general across the U.S. are looking to stymie corporate climate action, setting up investigations into a number of key reporting and target setting groups.

Earlier this month, 23 attorneys general led by Iowa AG Brenna Bird, wrote a letter to a British charity that validates climate goals for companies the world over, the Science Based Targets initiative. In it she argued that the SBTi is engaging in anticompetitive behavior that is hurting U.S. businesses and consumers in their states.

Trump Administration's Cuts to Harvard Funding Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

The federal government improperly cut off $2.2 billion in research funding from Harvard University and must restore the funds, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, concluding the Trump administration's actions violated Harvard's constitutional rights.

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September 04, 2025 06:23 ET (10:23 GMT)