ICE EUA FUTURES TECHS: (25) Trend Needle Points North

• In light of there being no JOLTS report for September from the BLS today due to the ongoing government shutdown, we take another look at the latest daily job openings data from Indeed, provided with a 7-day rolling average up until Oct 26.
• These openings suggest there was a sizeable 2.4% decline through September since end-August (the latest period we have for JOLTS openings), before a steadier decline thereafter for a cumulative 3.1% drop in almost two months.  
• Analysts estimated 7.13mn for what would have been JOLTS job openings in September, a 1.3% decline from 7.23mn in August, with Indeed openings a little more pessimistic. [Note the 12 analyst estimates for today’s ‘release’ vs closer to 30 responses usually]
• These daily openings are at their lowest since 2021, although indexing them to pre-pandemic levels with JOLTS job openings they’re roughly consistent with JOLTS figures. A further decline ahead would be more notable.
• Fed Chair Powell on Wednesday wasn’t overly concerned about the labor market at Wednesday’s press conference as part of remarks aimed at instigating some uncertainty over a December rate cut. Talking on some areas that can be watched during the government shutdown: “The labor market is a place where we get, for example, we get the state level data on initial claims, which are sending sort of a signal of more of the same. We also get job openings, and we'll get lots of survey data, we'll get the Beige Book and things like that. So we'll have a -- we'll have a picture of what's going on in the labor market. And the fact that we're not seeing an uptick in claims, or a downtick really in openings, suggests that you're seeing maybe continued very gradual cooling, but nothing more than that. So that does give you some comfort.”

More AUD Call sellers on the CME (multiple clips):

• AUDUSD (5th Dec) 66.50c, sold at 0.11 in 2.9k.
• AUDUSD (5th dec) 67.00c, sold at 0.06 and now 0.05 in 2.5k total

• 10,000 TUZ5 103.87/104.37/104.5/104.87 broken put condors ref 104-05.5 to -05.62, 7.5 net