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One thing that quite often puzzles people who do not work in financial markets is their tendency to treat seemingly good news as bad.

We got a classic example on Friday with news that US employers added 336,000 jobs in September.

That was up from 227,000 in August (a figure itself revised higher from the previous 187,000) and way ahead of the 170,000 Wall Street had been looking for.

The numbers were, in the jargon, very “hot”.

Good news? Well, yes, if you are one of the Americans who was able to move into employment during the month or switch to a better-paid role elsewhere.

So far as markets were concerned though, it was anything but good news.

The figures suggest that the US economy is continuing to motor, despite the fact that the US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates 11 times since March 2022 to combat inflation.

That, in turn, means that the Fed may have to resume rate hikes – having not done so since 27 July.

The Bank of England in the city of London
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Both the Bank of England, pictured, and US Federal Reserve held off on imposing interest rate hikes last month

Accordingly, yields – which rise as the price falls – on US Treasury bonds spiked higher.

The yield on two-year notes jumped to as high as 4.847%, having closed on Thursday evening at 4.716%, while the yield on 10-year US Treasuries, which had been 4.716% on Thursday evening, jumped to as much as 4.858%.

Yields are now approaching the multi-year highs hit earlier this week as markets started to price in the possibility of interest rates remaining higher for longer – a process that got under way in earnest towards the end of September.

Hetal Mehta, head of economic research at the wealth manager St James’s Place, said: “Today’s payrolls print was punchy, with the monthly change nearly double what the market was expecting and the highest since January.

“When we zoom out, we can still see evidence of an improvement in the labour market imbalance, but today’s print underscores the slow progress; the US still has far more job openings than it has people looking for work.

“This is clearly inconsistent with what the Fed requires to get inflation down, let alone signal rate cuts.”

The Bank of England in the city of London
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Both the Bank of England, pictured, and US Federal Reserve held off on imposing interest rate hikes last month

Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, added: “The blowout jobs report is maybe not so good news for markets.

“Not only does today’s report indicate the economy is almost too hot to handle and the Fed will need to respond with more rate hikes, it reinforces the higher for longer narrative that has been spooking bond markets for the past few weeks.”

What was particularly curious about the September numbers was that it seemed perfectly reasonable to expect a slowdown in job creation.

The long-running actors and writers strikes in the TV and film industry has depressed hiring in those industries, while the three-week old strike action being taken by the United Auto Workers union against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis can be expected to have a similar impact on the car manufacturing and car parts sectors.

That may have been the case. But subdued activity in those sectors was more than made up for by renewed hiring in the leisure and hospitality sectors where nearly 100,000 jobs were created during the month – finally taking the numbers employed in bars and restaurants back to the levels seen before the pandemic.

Other sectors that added more jobs during the month included healthcare, where 41,000 jobs were created during the month, and transport. The expected uplift created by the start of the new school and college year also had an impact.

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A weakening currency makes imports more expensive, placing upwards pressure on inflation

The impact of the numbers was felt in other asset classes. The main equity indices on Wall Street fell at the open, while on the foreign exchange markets – where the US dollar this week hit 150 yen for the first time in a year and capped a record unbroken 12-week winning run against the euro – saw the greenback resume its upward path.

The pound, after a decent 48 hours, also fell against the greenback and remains close to the levels against the US dollar it hit last March.

Not all the data released today was necessarily bad.

Average hourly earnings growth during September was up 0.2% month on month and up 4.2% on a year-on-year basis, which was slightly lower than the 4.3% seen in August.

That looks good for consumer spending on the whole, but not sufficiently strong to worry the Fed, although the latter has been looking for annual earnings growth to return to pre-pandemic levels of 2% to 3%.

The other key revelation was that the labour force participation rate – the proportion of people of working age who are in work or looking for work – was 62.8%.

That helps explain why, contrary to expectations, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8% – the highest since February 2022.

The market had been looking for a slight fall to 3.7%, but the fact that the rate was unchanged speaks to the fact that more Americans of working age are entering the jobs market. The Fed will take comfort from that because, when more people are looking for work, employers have to pay less to attract them.

These latter developments do point to the “soft landing” that markets have craved.

But the overall conclusion is that the US economy is still growing sufficiently rapidly – and the jobs market sufficiently robust – for the Fed to raise interest rates at least one more time before the end of the year.

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Trump wants to emulate Putin and govern US in ‘a similar fashion’, his former national security adviser says

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Trump wants to emulate Putin and govern US in 'a similar fashion', his former national security adviser says

Donald Trump wants to emulate Vladimir Putin and “govern his own country in a similar fashion”, his former national security adviser has said.

Fiona Hill told Sky News’ The World with Yalda Hakim that the US and Russian presidents both share the same view of the world as being “divided up among three major powers; Russia, the US and China, with very clear spheres of influence”.

She said the two leaders “have shockingly similar world views”.

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Pic: Reuters
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pic: Reuters

“This is the first time we’ve had a US president who wants to emulate the Russian leader in some way, who wants to create a hyper-personalised presidency, who wants to basically govern his own country in a very similar fashion, very top down without any checks and balances,” she said.

Ms Hill added Mr Trump wants to “regularise, normalise and reset” the relationship between the US and Russia.

“That’s very clear, it’s been clear since the first presidency of Trump,” she said.

“He’s always wanted to sit down with Vladimir Putin and sort out all of the difficulties in the bilateral relationship, everything from nuclear issues and nuclear arms reduction – there’s all kinds of economic and business deals that Trump himself and his immediate circle are very interested in.

“That was not the direction of travel of other US presidents. So in actual fact there’s probably more chance under Trump of a close relationship between the US and Putin.”

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Ms Hill said Mr Trump has an interest in forging a “personal relationship” beyond what he already has with Mr Putin.

“He wants to extricate the United States from its support for Ukraine, he’s said that very clearly,” she said.

“He also wants to pull back from the underpinning of European security and get the Europeans to pick up not just support for Ukraine, but also much more involvement and much more in-depth payment for all of their own security, that’s also very clear.

“So there is a strategic perspective there and I think part of the US strategy and the Trump administration strategy is to push the Europeans to go off essentially on their owns in terms of framing what they want in European security and making it very clear to the Ukrainians that they can’t expect much more future support from the United States.”

It comes as Mr Trump claimed a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is “very close”.

Hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio withdrew from high-level talks in London aimed at ending the conflict, the American president heaped pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “get it done”.

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Depth of Trump’s frustration revealed in comments on Zelenskyy – and there was one notable absence in his Truth Social post

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Depth of Trump's frustration revealed in comments on Zelenskyy - and there was one notable absence in his Truth Social post

The White House is desperate for a breakthrough.

Donald Trump vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of assuming office.

This is day 94 of his second presidency.

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Ukraine war Q&A: Could Trump walk away?

Last Friday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that America was ready to “move on” if there wasn’t a deal soon.

If that comment, reinforced by President Trump, was designed to put pressure on Ukraine, it didn’t have the desired effect.

That became clear when Rubio pulled out of peace negotiations in London, a summit downgraded to technical talks.

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It’s not that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won’t back down, it’s that he can’t.

The US plan to recognise Russia‘s claim to Ukrainian territory it has seized effectively legitimises Moscow’s decision to invade.

To concede that would be a breach of Ukraine’s constitution.

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Ukraine has not hinted at recognising Crimea as Russian ‘for even a day’

The country’s economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says they’re “ready to negotiate, not ready to surrender”.

US vice president JD Vance has now stepped into Marco Rubio’s shoes, warning that America will “walk away” if there isn’t a “yes” from both sides.

But President Trump is only talking about one side: Ukraine.

The absence of any reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his lengthy post online will not have gone unnoticed.

He claimed no one was asking Zelenskyy to recognise Crimea as Russian, but contradicted that by asking why Ukraine hadn’t fought for Crimea 11 years ago.

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President Trump blamed the loss of Crimea on one of his predecessors, his reference to “President Barack Hussein Obama” revealing the depth of his frustration.

He claims he is “very close” to a deal, but the signals from Washington, London, Moscow and Kyiv suggest otherwise.

Right now, it feels like he’s much closer to throwing in the towel and throwing Zelenskyy under the bus. Again.

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Trade war: Stock markets rally as Trump rows back on Fed and China threats

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Trade war: Stock markets rally as Trump rows back on Fed and China threats

Global stock markets and the dollar have rallied on hopes of two significant climbdowns by the Trump administration on issues blamed for a slump in values.

Remarks by the US Treasury secretary on punitive tariffs against China lifted the mood on Wall Street initially before the president himself moved to calm market trade war worries and also end speculation he could fire the head of the country’s central bank.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and tech-focused Nasdaq Composite both ended Tuesday trading 2.7% up, erasing losses of the previous day.

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Asian markets later followed that lead, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gaining 2.4%.

European indices also saw a strong opening, with the FTSE 100 up by more than 1.2%. It was led higher by Asia-focused banks HSBC and Standard Chartered.

US futures suggested Wall Street would pick up where it left off, with further strong gains expected.

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The US dollar – badly hit by trade war implications in recent weeks – was at least a cent higher than a day earlier against many rival currencies including the pound.

The rally gathered steam on Tuesday evening when US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told a private JPMorgan event that he expected a “de-escalation” in the spiralling spat with China.

It’s a fight that has seen US tariffs hit 145% and China responding with duties of 125%.

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Trump: Tariffs are making US ‘rich’

According to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press news agency, he told the audience: “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable”, but he added that peace talks were yet to start in earnest and could take time to bear fruit.

His boss later struck a similar tone in remarks to reporters when he said the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.

“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Mr Trump said, adding: “We’re doing fine with China… we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”

He gave no hint that he plans to ease wider tariffs on trading partners, including the UK which is currently subject to 25% tariffs on car, steel and aluminium imports and a wider 10% “baseline” tariff.

But the president did row back on an apparent threat, made last week, to sack the chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in revenge for the US central bank holding off on interest rate cuts that could provide some stimulus to the tariff-hit economy.

Mr Powell has said the Trump administration’s protectionist policies have created uncertainty over growth and the threat of higher inflation.

The president has dismissed those arguments but told reporters: “I have no intention of firing him”.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell speaks at the DealBook Summit in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was nominated for the role by Donald Trump in 2017. File pic: AP

His comments were widely seen as an attempt to calm financial market concerns that the independence of the country’s central bank was under threat.

Analysts cautioned there was a long way to go to recover values seen before the start of the trade war, with the Nasdaq remaining almost 16% down in the year to date alone.

US government borrowing costs also remain elevated.

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What IMF said about the UK economy

Not helping sentiment were big downgrades to global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said of the investor mood: “Participants understandably remain jittery, not only as the haven value of both Treasuries and the USD (US dollar) continue to be called into question, but also as a huge degree of trade uncertainty continues to linger.

“As a reminder, the whole concept of ’90 deals in 90 days’ is currently running at ‘0 deals in 14 days’ which, to be frank, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”

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