Hot Jobs Report Lifts Expectations for Rate Hike

0:00Here's your closing bell brief for Friday, September 4th. I'm Kareb Yanima for the Wall Street Journal. A hotter than expected, Jomps Report sent US stocks and short-term bond prices lower today as traders bet on a rate hike from the Federal Reserve later this month. All three major indexes, the NASDAQ S&B 500 and Dow, fell a few tenths of a percent, the Dow led the losses dropping half a percent. The US economy added 162,000 jobs in August about triple what economists expected. That helps remove one obstacle to raising rates. And in a reminder of the inflation pressure facing the Fed, diesel prices hit a new all-time high today at $5.85 a gallon, beating their previous record from 2022. Investors now see a 60% chance that the Fed will hike rates up from 52% before the report's release. According to individual companies, Volkswagen shares jumped 6.5% after it approved a plan to double the number of jobs it plans to cut to 100,000 and cut its model portfolio in

1:05half. The active retailer Lulu Lemon cut its outlook for the second time this year following another quarter of declining sales in its America's business, shares fell 17%. Software for Medobe saw its shares slide after it announced an internal hire to take over a CEO in December. Shares were down more than 6.5%. And the firearms manufacturer Smith and Wesson said sales jumped by roughly a third in the fiscal first quarter, helping it swing to a profit. Shares grew 5%. Heads up an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. Please hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.