The Dow Jones Industrial Average was on the move this morning after the U.S. Labor Department released the August jobs report. The agency reported extremely strong wage growth and said that the unemployment rate of 3.9% is a near-generational low.
Here are the numbers from Thursday for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq:
Index
Previous Close
Point Change
Percentage Change
Dow Jones
25,995.87
20.88
0.08%
S&P 500
7,922.73
-72.45
-0.91%
Nasdaq
2,878.05
-10.55
-0.37%
Now here's a closer look at today's Money Morning insight, the most important market events, and stocks to watch.
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The Top Stock Market Stories for Friday
Job growth topped expectations, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to a multi-decade low of 3.9%. The agency said that nonfarm payrolls increased by 201,000 new jobs. The average estimate was set at 191,000 jobs before the report. Average hourly earnings increased by 2.9% for the month on an annualized basis. The U.S. economy added 157,000 new jobs in July, and it has averaged 221,000 new positions during the previous five months.
Twitter Inc. (Nasdaq: TWTR) has permanently banned Alex Jones and his website Infowars from its social media platform. Jack Dorsey's firm said that Jones had repeatedly violated Twitter's content policy. The announcement comes shortly after Jones heckled Dorsey outside of congressional hearings about online election interference, social media and political bias, and censorship. Jones had also live-streamed a very heated interaction with CNNreporter Oliver Darcy. Alphabet's (Nasdaq: GOOGL) YouTube, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), and Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) have also banned Jones in recent weeks.
The price of Bitcoin is off more than 20% in the last two days. The plunge has also spread to Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and the rest of the cryptocurrency sector. The sharp downturn came after Business Insider released a report that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) may abandon its plan to launch a trading desk around the cryptocurrency sector. Goldman has since publicly said that no decision is final. However, the jitters have fueled yet another panicked sell-off in a very volatile sector.
Money Morning Insight of the Day
There's an old adage in the markets. "Buy the rumor... sell the news." It's made fortunes for savvy investors for decades. The secret is to have enough insight to know exactly what whispers on Wall Street are and what the source of ironclad facts is.
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Luckily, we have Money Morning Quantitative Specialist Chris Johnson. Today, he's unveiling one of the biggest rumors on Wall Street and showing you how Wall Street is giving us one of the best profit opportunities of the year. Read more right here.
Four Stocks to Watch Today: TSLA, CPB, PANW, AVGO
Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is generating headlines after his recent appearance on the podcast of comedian Joe Rogan. Musk is seen smoking marijuana and sipping whiskey during a conversation on issues ranging from Tesla and China to humanity and artificial intelligence. Musk even brought one of his company's flamethrowers to the studio. Recreational marijuana is legal in California. The interview attracted 450,000 viewers within five hours. TSLA stock was off more than 1% in pre-market trading.
Get ready for a proxy battle at one of America's oldest consumer goods companies. According to reports, Daniel Loeb's hedge fund Third Point is preparing a proxy fight to replace the entire board of directors at Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB). Shares of CPB stock added more than 1.6% this morning.
A light day of earnings reports features just Genesco Inc. (NYSE: GCO). However, there was plenty of earnings action after the bell on Thursday. Shares of Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NYSE: PANW) popped more than 6.3% after the firm topped profit expectations by $0.11. Wall Street had expected earnings per share of $1.17. Meanwhile, semiconductor giant Broadcom Inc. (Nasdaq: AVGO) stock rallied nearly 4.5% after it beat Wall Street earnings estimates of $4.83 per share by $0.16.
Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.