US STOCKS: Late Equities Roundup: Tech Stocks Lead Declines

• Updated for October two days ago, we add the “Alternative Version” of the KC Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI) to the broad list of labor indicators we have focused on for labor market clues under the government shutdown. Atlanta Fed's Bostic today described it as one of his favorite gauges of the labor market.
• This Alternative Version, which excludes delayed government series, “suggests little change in the labor market, but a deceleration in labor market momentum caused by a high number of announced job cuts [in the Challenger report]. This has pushed down our model's forecast of payroll employment growth for October.”
• This restricted model points to an unemployment rate of 4.4% in October, broadly chiming with the 4.36% from the Chicago Fed’s unemployment rate nowcast for a very mild deterioration from the 4.32% reported in latest BLS data for August.
• It also sees the economy losing an average of 13k jobs per month from Aug-Oct, “driven entirely by the aforementioned announced job cuts in October”.
• We see a high likelihood of the delayed September payrolls report being released between Friday to early next week although the White House has called into question whether the October jobs report will be published.
• See the MNI US Shadow Employment Report here, noting that it was published prior to Tuesday’s slide in the weekly ADP series (see US DATA: Weekly ADP Series Rolls Over – Nov 11, 1016ET). 

• RES 4: 156.75 High Jan 23 
• RES 3: 155.89 High Feb 3
• RES 2: 155.53 2.00 projection of the Sep 17 - 26 - Oct 1 price swing
• RES 1: 155.04 High Nov 12
• PRICE: 154.53 @ 17:17 GMT Nov 12 
• SUP 1: 152.84 20-day EMA
• SUP 2: 151.54 Low Oct 29   
• SUP 3: 151.03 50-day EMA  
• SUP 4: 150.47 Low Oct 21 

The trend structure in USDJPY remains bullish and this week’s gains reinforce current conditions. Today’s climb has delivered a print above 154.48, the Nov 4 high and bull trigger. This confirms a resumption of the uptrend and maintains the price sequence of higher highs and higher lows. Sights are on 155.53, a Fibonacci projection. Initial support to watch lies at 152.84, the 20-day EMA.   

A new survey from YouGov has found that, “Roughly equal shares of Americans say that Democrats in Congress should have and should not have held out for changes to health care funding — such as extending subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage — before agreeing to end the government shutdown (41% vs. 39%)” The survey notes, “Three weeks earlier, more Americans said Democrats should than should not hold out for health care funding (45% vs. 32%)”

• Another YouGov poll conducted Monday — after the Senate reached the agreement to fund the government and end the shutdown but before the measure passed — found that “Republicans approve of the shutdown deal by 56% to 11%. Nearly half (47%) of Democrats disapprove and 31% approve.”
• YouGov notes, “The poll that ran after the post-shutdown deal also found that Republicans in Congress are seen as benefitting more from the deal than Democrats are (38% say Republicans benefit more and 9% say Democrats do); 20% believe Republicans and Democrats benefit equally from it."

Figure 1: “Do you approve or disapprove of the deal reached by Congress to fund the government and end the shutdown? (%)”

Source: YouGov