Markets Wait for Trump Tariffs and Key Job Data

Investment professional are calling this an “event week,” and if anything, they may be understating it. Today marks the final day of calendar first quarter (Q1), meaning a new earnings season will be brewing over the next couple weeks. It’s also Jobs Week, with a full slate: Tuesday brings us the JOLTS report, Wednesday is private-sector payrolls from ADP ADP, Thursday has Weekly Jobless Claims and Friday is the Employment Situation report from the U.S. government.

The JOLTS numbers (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey), reported a month in arrears (February, versus the other jobs reports, which will be for March) are expected to remain steady at 7.7 million openings, indicating some cooling but overall still a healthy jobs market. Private-sector jobs are expected to come in more than 40K higher month over month to 120K, and Friday’s non-farm payrolls look to ratchet down to 128K from 151K posted a month ago.

Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims have been among the steadiest reports for a well-off labor market that we’ve seen. Because they parse data on a weekly basis rather than monthly, we often look for clues in employment that might the broader jobs reports, but we remain right in the middle of jobless claims reported over the past three years or so. Will this be the week we start to see these numbers move up, based on DOGE layoffs, immigration roundups, and the like?

Tariffs on Deck for Wednesday, April 2nd

Just this morning, President Trump stated that trade tariffs will start for “all countries” this Wednesday, April 2nd. Some analysts had previously surmised that only nations with whom the U.S. currently has a trade imbalance would be affected, but today’s clarification lays it plain. This lends to the idea that trade tariffs are a key component to paying for extending corporate tax cuts.

From Nasdaq highs 5 1/2 weeks ago, the tech-heavy index is down nearly -15% as of this morning. Only the small-cap Russell 2000, which from its late-November highs are down more than -19%, has performed worse. At this hour, the Dow is down another -267 points, the S&P 500 -51 and the Nasdaq is -238 points at this hour.

Perhaps this “trimming down” of market valuations is doing everyone a favor. Rather than waiting until Wednesday and watching markets tank to alarming levels that would set off global market headlines, market participants have already gotten ahead of whatever bad news lies ahead. Plus, if for any reason the tariffs arrive at less-draconian price-points, it might allow for a bounce-back in shares. But we won’t be pricing such a thing in at this time.

Earnings Wrap-Up: RH, PVH & More

As if that’s all not enough, we also have a few notable companies reporting earnings this week, from Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger parent PVH PVH after today’s closing bell to RH RH — formerly Restoration Hardware — mid-week and Guess? GES the following day. A week from Wednesday we’ll see Delta Air Lines DAL report Q1 figures, followed by the big banks like JPMorgan JPM and Wells Fargo WFC at the end of that week.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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