The Jobs Number Fell. The Hike Odds Rose. Two Thirds Says Somebody Is Wrong.

Stock Market Edge

The Curve Eased on the Day the Hike Got More Likely
Two facts from one afternoon that refuse to sit together

Premarket snapshot:
ES traded 7,669.50 at 01:42 ET, off 0.09%, against Wednesday’s 7,666.60 close. NQ held 29,138.75, off 0.16%. YM and RTY barely moved. After a session that clawed back most of Tuesday’s damage, the overnight tape has decided to wait for Friday like a sensible adult.

Sector rotation:
Nvidia added 3.76%, Microsoft 3.46%, Amazon 2.36%, and the Dow was carried by Nvidia and Johnson & Johnson, a sentence that would have read oddly in any other decade. Dell closed up roughly 13% having been down 7% intraday.

Earnings or guidance:
Broadcom did everything the bulls asked. Adjusted EPS 3.32 against 3.24, revenue 29.59bn against 29.36bn, sales up 86%, net income tripled to 13.09bn. Then it guided Q4 to 34.8bn where the street wanted 35.03bn, and lost 5%. The bar is the guide, not the quarter.

Cross-asset nuance:
Two-year 4.38%, ten-year 4.79%, thirty-year 5.26%, each down two basis points, with the ten-year touching 4.818% intraday first, the highest since November 2023. Dollar index 99.58, off 0.07%. Gold closed above 4,360 after a near one-month low and trades 4,473.0 this morning. WTI eased to 89.88. The metal found its bid the moment the jobs data softened.

📊 There’s a level on SPX I’m watching closely this morning. My full analysis briefing has it – plus what happens if we hold it, and what happens if we don’t. [Read it here →]

Crypto Market Edge

The Independent Asset Awaits a Government Survey
A record month for flows, and then September said hello

Price snapshot:
BTC traded 77,437.94 dollars at 01:42 ET, up 0.17%, after gaining roughly 25% in August, its best month since November 2024. It has been stalled beneath the 80,000 to 82,700 band ever since Warsh spoke at Jackson Hole. Market cap sits near 1.55 trillion.

Flows & positioning:
August delivered 3.52bn dollars of spot ETF inflows against 172m in July, the strongest month since October 2025, cutting year-to-date outflows from 5.29bn to 1.77bn. Then reporting points to a 236m outflow as September opened. Note that this conflicts with the single-day inflow figure we carried on Tuesday, and we are not pretending otherwise.

Leadership & rotation:
Strategy’s 80,318 dollar average still sits about 3.6% above spot, narrowed from 4.2%. Ether and XRP products took small inflows whilst bitcoin gave ground, which is the sort of rotation that happens when nobody wants to be the one holding the big position into a data print.

Catalysts & roadmap:
ISM services and jobless claims today. August payrolls Friday, and after ADP nobody is confident about the number. Ottawa’s countermeasures on roughly 20bn dollars of US goods remain dated 8 September. Markets shut Monday for Labor Day. PPI on the 10th, CPI on the 11th, FOMC on the 15th and 16th.

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TL;DR – The Bottom Line

• Private payrolls rose 38,000 in August, the weakest since January, and the market still prices a September hike near two thirds, up from roughly 40% a week ago.
• The Beige Book agreed with the jobs data: activity modest, employment up very slightly, prices moderate. Contacts blamed energy, policy and conflict for the uncertainty.
• Broadcom beat on EPS and revenue with sales up 86%, guided Q4 230m dollars light, and fell 5% after hours. Dell raised its outlook and gained 13%.
• The S&P rose 0.46% to 7,666.60 and the whole curve fell two basis points, on the same afternoon the hike probability sat at two thirds.
• ISM services and claims today, payrolls Friday, Labor Day Monday, then PPI, CPI and an FOMC meeting with a fresh set of projections.

📌 Fun Fact

Eighty-Six Tonnes Quietly Moved House
A central bank rearranged its vaults and used an interesting word

The Dutch central bank disclosed that it has moved 86 metric tons of gold out of New York and Ottawa and into London over the past six months. The stated reasons were improving tradability and strengthening crisis preparedness. Nobody has asked which crisis.