Friday’s jobs report will likely hold less significance than next week’s inflation report but is still seen shaping the narrative ahead of this month’s FOMC meeting, if the US produces another negative figure.

The consensus estimate for payrolls is 55,000, in what would be a rebound from last month’s fall of 23,000. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 4.1%, with average hourly earnings seen at 0.3% m/m and 3.1 y/y. The private payroll number is estimated to have gained 50,000 workers in August.

Alongside the headline number, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the preliminary benchmark estimates for 2026. BMO’s Sal Guatieri noted that recent years have seen sizeable downward revisions but predicted the negative streak could end this year.

“We estimate the March 2026 payrolls level could increase by about 200,000, implying an upward adjustment of 17,000 per month. Pre-revision, nonfarm payrolls grew an average of just 18k per month, so that pace is expected to double… but that still won’t meaningfully change the current low-hiring trend,” the BMO economist advised.

(Continue Reading – LiveSquawk)

Oman has quietly rejected Iran’s request to jointly charge service fees on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, The Post has learned — averting a clash with President Trump, who has threatened to rain down bombs on the US ally.

A high-ranking regional official said that Muscat declined to consent to charging fees — even on a voluntary basis — for environmental and security services, contrary to a statement last week from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The terms of a proposed revenue-sharing deal had not been finalized, even by Tehran, a US official told The Post last week — indicating the IRGC jumped the gun.

(Continue Reading – NY Post)

The world is used to American tariff news daily. A new target is chosen, a new reason is put forward, another legal authority is selected, and a new tariff is put in place, ostensibly to force concessions from a trading partner. But the new tariffs on Canada set a new record for lack of credibility. They invoke a zombie authority found in the notorious and discredited Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which deepened the Great Depression. The courts should reject these tariffs as patently illegal.

We have all seen this movie before.

(Continue Reading – Peterson Institute For International Economics)

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is on a collision course with GOP senators as key lawmakers have major concerns about the turnover of senior staff, the lack of a clear plan for ending the Iran war, and the failure of the administration to reach out to Democrats to build support for funding priorities.

Hegseth has been a controversial figure throughout his leadership of the Pentagon, but the growing tensions between him and senior GOP lawmakers will come to a head this fall when the administration makes a push for more than $70 billion in emergency national security spending to cover the growing costs of the Iran war.

Senate Republicans will demand more information about the departures of senior military officials, such as Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, who resigned this week, and about the conduct of the military conflict with Iran, which has now stretched for more than six months.

(Continue Reading – The Hill)