November 8, 2013

On Friday, investors will be taking direction from the October employment situation report due out a little later this morning, with most analysts expecting modest nonfarm payroll growth of between 110,000-120,000 jobs added last month. As with other key economic indicators, their are considerable downside risks with the jobs numbers as any reading that is deemed “too positive” can be seen as encouraging the Federal Reserve to take away the punch bowl sooner rather than later, while subpar readings reflect negatively on the economy and labor market. Ahead of the jobs reports, commodity markets lacked direction with most actively traded SHFE Jan copper settling 0.3% higher today in Shanghai, while aluminum and zinc prices edged lower. In London, LME 3-mo. copper reportedly traded as high as $7,179.25/mt (=$3.256/lb.) before retracing those gains, while LME 3-mo. aluminum and nickel traded as low as $1,810/mt (=82.1 cents/lb.) and $13,931/mt (=$6.32/lb.), respectively, earlier today. The major stock indexes in Europe and Asia were in negative territory ahead of the much anticipated U.S. jobs report, while the Euro edged up to $1.342…

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