Non-farm and unemployment figures slow determined DOW

Anticipation was high this afternoon as the finance industry waited for the reveal of the US non-farm employment change and unemployment rate. The non-farm employment figure was up 214k, less than the estimated 225k, with the unemployment rate falling to 5.8%. This latter figure is the lowest unemployment has been since 2008. Whilst the non-farm employment change was lower than hoped, August and September’s numbers were amended to reflect another 31k jobs were created. After these slightly disappointing figures the Dow Jones opened at 17525.38, falling from Thursday’s close of 17562.5. The S&P 500 also slipped to an open of 2028.38, whilst the USD/JPY slightly fell to 114.642.

After Mario Draghi’s comments yesterday, the European markets were a mixed bag. The FTSE100 opened strong on Friday at 6565.2, up 8 points from Thursday’s closing figure. It hit 6603.7 during the morning before falling 16 points after the job figure announcements from the US. Positive signs form the FTSE100 and a Goldman Sachs’ rating of ‘buy’ helped Royal Mail rally to 470.55, its highest price since mid-July. It wasn’t all similes in the UK, as after the disappointing construction PMI figures earlier in the week, Britain’s trade deficit widened more than expected. The September figures were 9.821 billion instead of the forecasted 9.4bn, growing from August’s 8.950bn. The German markets suffered today as the DAX closed 130 points lower than it opened at 9306.5. And as Russia becomes more alienated from the rest of the world, the rouble fell against both the dollar and the euro by 2%, following a similar fall on Thursday, as cries for a government intervention grow louder. The euro itself experienced some minor growth against the dollar, increasing to $1.244 per euro from Thursday’s close of 1.2387. Despite this minor increase, there appears to be no signs of the euro’s decline coming to an end.

Beyond the indices there was disastrous news for the pharmaceutical company Salix, as the resignation of CFO Adam Derbyshire and the 50% rise in inventory since the start of the year caused stock prices to plummet by 37%. This had ramifications for both Allergan Inc, who were in takeover talks with Salix, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, whose hostile offer Allergan were hoping to avoid in their talks with Salix. It was the same issue that caused the CFO resignation which prompted Allergan to back away from their deal, with the reveal of Salix’s prohibitively high inventory scaring off investors.

Like its British counterpoints, Bank of America has set aside $400 million due to the legal costs of the investigation into the manipulation of the forex. This is in line with similar figures from HSBC, who have set aside $378 million, and Barclays, who have set aside £500 million. There are also murmurs that these latter banks, alongside RBS, Citigroup, JP Morgan and UBS could be fined as early as next Wednesday.

Finally, with a colossal summer, including surprise hit Guardians of the Galaxy, and Angelina Jolie vehicle Maleficent, Disney posted a better than expected fourth quarter report, with the predicted $12.36billion instead reaching $12.39bn. Disney continues to be boosted by their acquisition of Marvel, with the comic studios’ films regularly reaching the $700m to $1bn mark worldwide. However, the revenue from Disney’s cable and broadcasting sector was $0.03bn less than expected, at $5.22bn. However, these numbers didn’t cause any positivity in the market for Disney, with stocks trading 3.2% lower after the announcement of these figures.