U.S. non-farm employment data for February far exceeded expectations
Last night, the U.S. non-farm employment data for February was released. Data showed that the U.S. non-farm payrolls added 379,000 people in February, far exceeding market expectations of an increase of 182,000, compared with the previous increase of 49,000. The U.S. unemployment rate in February was 6.2%, lower than market expectations of 6.3% and the previous value was 6.3%.
Analysts believe that the U.S. non-farm employment data in February far exceeded expectations, which may become the key to signaling future economic recovery and policy changes in the United States.
From a data perspective, 379,000 new non-agricultural jobs were created in February, far exceeding market expectations of 180,000-200,000. At the same time, the unemployment rate also dropped more than expected. 0.1% to 6.2%. The broader U-6 unemployment rate (underemployment rate) continued to remain at 11.1%. The Labor Department said most of the new jobs were in the leisure and hospitality industry (355,000), while local government jobs in education (-69,000), construction (-61,000) and mining (-8,000) There has been a decline.
As an economic data that the Federal Reserve pays close attention to, the U.S. job market is still down by nearly 10 million jobs from its peak in February last year. The Fed has pledged not to raise interest rates until employment recovers significantly across income levels, genders and races, while also tolerating inflation that moderately exceeds its long-term goal. In his speech on Thursday, Powell also said he did not think the U.S. economy could meet the Fed’s goals this year.
Affected by this good news, the ten-year U.S. bond yield once jumped above 1.62% and then gradually fell back, and the three major U.S. stock index futures rose across the board. As of the close of trading early this morning, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher. Among them, the S&P 500 Index rose 1.95%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.85%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.55%.
OPEC+ is “too powerful”, crude oil futures generally rose
Suffering from the surge in international oil prices overnight Boost, this Friday, crude oil futures in the domestic futures market generally rose sharply. The main 2104 contract of SC crude oil rose by more than 6.8%, the main 2105 contract of fuel oil increased by 6.75%, and the main 2105 contract of low-sulfur fuel oil increased by nearly 5.5%.
International oil prices rose sharply again overnight. As of early morning today, WTI April crude oil futures closed up $2.26, or 3.54%, at $66.09 per barrel. Brent May crude oil futures closed up $2.62, or 3.92%, at $69.36 per barrel.
On March 4, OPEC stated in an announcement that the 14th OPEC+ ministerial online meeting held that day approved the overall extension of crude oil production in March to April, but allowed Russia and Kazakhstan began to increase crude oil production by 130,000 barrels and 20,000 barrels per day respectively in April. The announcement also stated that Saudi Arabia will extend the voluntary production cut of 1 million barrels per day from February to March to April, which demonstrates Saudi Arabia’s leadership and flexible and proactive attitude.
“OPEC’s move once pushed oil prices to a new high in the past year, but this was only one of the reasons for the sharp rise in crude oil yesterday.” President of New Century Futures Research Institute Huang Zhen, a senior researcher on asset class, told reporters that the U.S. Senate passed a procedural vote and began discussing Biden’s 1.9 trillion bailout plan, which also greatly boosted market investors’ confidence in crude oil demand and helped oil prices rise again. .
Looking forward to the market outlook, Huang Zhen believes that on the one hand, as the number of new confirmed cases and new deaths from the global new crown continues to slow down, the global economy will Steady recovery with the continued support of quantitative easing policy will promote global consumer demand for crude oil and provide strong support for the continued recovery of oil prices. On the other hand, as OPEC+ continues to promote production cuts, U.S. crude oil mining production capacity will be difficult to increase significantly due to Biden’s new energy policy. U.S. Texas refinery production capacity will be affected by the severe cold and cannot be restored in a short time. Global crude oil demand Total supply will remain tight. Although OPEC+ will increase production moderately in the future, with Saudi Arabia’s voluntary additional production cuts bringing the total production reduction to about 8 million barrels per day, the increase in supply is negligible and not enough to reverse market concerns about tighter supply. In addition, the tightening geopolitical relations in the Middle East have also supported oil prices to a certain extent.
It is worth mentioning that, affected by the sharp rise in oil prices, fuel oil prices rose sharply yesterday. Analysts believe that in addition to strong cost drivers, optimistic market demand for fuel oil is also an important factor in higher prices. On the one hand, affected by the substitution effect of the recent surge in LNG prices, the proportion of fuel oil consumption by power plants has increased. In March, Bangladesh may import 350,000 tons of high-sulfur fuel oil, most of which will be consumed by power plants. The performance of the power generation terminal demand for fuel Good; on the other hand, as the shipping industry’s prosperity picks up, the demand for terminal marine oil, which uses fuel as the most important source of power, has also rebounded significantly
Gold is “very injured”, and both It fell nearly 10% in a month
As the US dollar rose, gold was “injured” again. As of the close of the morning today, gold closed slightly lower and fell below the important mark of US$1,700 per ounce. The most actively traded April gold futures price in the New York Mercantile Exchange gold futures market closed at $1,698.5 per ounce, down 0.13%.
As an investment product that can resist inflation and serve as a hedge, gold has become an “alternative” in an environment where many surrounding products are rising. The market can’t help but wonder, how long will the price of gold continue to fall?
Recently, Morgan Stanley economists said: “With the improvement of the epidemic situation, it is expected that the economies of various regions will fully restart in the next one or two months, which will help to boost the service sector, especially the is demand in epidemic-sensitive areas. In the United States, this situation is already beginning to emerge, where the easing of relevant restrictions in recent weeks is leading to an increase in the number of people dining out and air travel, as well as an increase in hotel occupancy rates, compared with January’s previous Consumer spending has grown significantly.” As the global economy recovers, gold, which has recently been suppressed by U.S. Treasury yields, will lose its safe-haven demand again.
However, with gold’s continuous decline, some analysts believe that gold prices may undergo a major reversal. Investors should focus on changes in the gold-to-oil ratio. The gold-to-oil ratio is an important indicator of gold price trends. In the past few years, gold has been trading at a high price relative to oil. When the gold-to-oil ratio falls back to a low enough level, gold prices will bottom.
The World Gold Council stated in its latest report that risk and uncertainty remain one of the factors driving gold price performance. The report believes that the outlook for gold’s investment demand remains optimistic: on the one hand, despite the decline in gold prices, the net long positions in gold futures in the New York market remain high, indicating that investors are still optimistic about the long-term prospects of gold; on the other hand, investors are still uncertain In a volatile environment, there are potentially multiple portfolio risks that need to be addressed, and gold can help investors manage these risks. </p
