Stocks closed higher Tuesday as investors cheered some bad-news-is-good-news jobs data. Sentiment also got a lift from an outsized rally in tech stocks that was fueled by declining Treasury yields and a round of bargain hunting.
Shortly after the opening bell rang, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said job openings fell by 338,000 in July to 8.8 million – their lowest level since March 2021. Professional and business services saw the biggest decline in job openings (-198,000), while the information field experienced the largest increase (+101,000). Meanwhile, the number of people quitting their jobs fell to 3.5 million from 3.8 million in June.
The Federal Reserve has consistently expressed concern that a stubbornly tight labor market is working at odds with its efforts to bring down inflation, so today's data is welcome news. Indeed, futures traders are now pricing in an 87% chance the central bank will pause rate hikes at its September meeting – up from yesterday's 78%, according to CME Group. Meanwhile, the probability of a rate hike at the Fed's November meeting dropped to 45% from Monday's 51%.
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Investors will get another reading on the labor market this Friday with the release of the August nonfarm payrolls report. "Investors should expect a softening labor report this Friday, further cementing the thesis that the Fed is getting close to finishing its tightening cycle," says Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial.
Also on today's economic calendar, data from The Conference Board showed its consumer confidence index fell to 106.1 in August from July's downwardly revised reading of 114.0. This marked the first decline for the index in two months. "Write-in responses showed that consumers were once again preoccupied with rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular," said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, in the report.
Coinbase, Bitcoin jump on favorable court order
In single-stock news, Coinbase Global (COIN) surged 14.9% today after a federal appeals court in Washington D.C. overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) attempt to block Grayscale Investments' application for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Judge Neomi Rao said the SEC's decision to approve two bitcoin future ETFs but reject the application for the spot market fund was "arbitrary and capricious."
The order "does not convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC, +17.0%) product into an ETF immediately, but gives a fair basis for Grayscale to be treated in line with other Bitcoin ETF applicants," says Gautam Chhugani, senior analyst of Global Digital Assets at Bernstein.
Other bitcoin-related stocks got a lift on the news, too, including Robinhood Markets (HOOD, +4.5%) and MicroStrategy (MSTR, +10.8%). Bitcoin, for its part, jumped more than 7%.
As for the major market indexes, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite soared 1.7% to 13,943, the broader S&P 500 gained 1.5% to 4,497, and the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9% to 34,852.
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