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Five Things
Bloomberg

It's jobs day, Thiam out at Credit Suisse and no sign the coronavirus crisis is easing. 

Payrolls

The January jobs report is expect to show hiring remains robust, with economists forecasting 165,000 new positions in the month. The unemployment rate is seen holding at 3.5% and annual wage growth improving slightly to 3% when the data is published at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. While there is usually little interest in revisions, today's release will include the annual tally which is anticipated to trim job gains with a drop of as much as 42,000 per month expected for the year through March. 

Battle lost

Tidjane Thiam was ousted as chief executive officer of Credit Suisse Group AG after the 13 directors backed Chairman Urs Rohner in a boardroom battle in the wake of a spying scandal. Despite major shareholders calling for the chairman to back Thiam or step down, the board picked Thomas Gottstein, a 20-year veteran of the company, as new CEO. Shares in the bank dropped more than 5% in Zurich trading. 

Getting worse

The toll from the coronavirus continues to mount with 636 dead and over 31,000 confirmed cases in China. The number of people on a cruise ship quarantined by Japan has risen to 61, making it the biggest center of the infection anywhere outside China. The economic fallout is also spreading with Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. among carmakers extending shutdowns at their Chinese manufacturing facilities while Burberry Group Plc scrapped its financial guidance for the year, warning the outbreak is cutting sales by 75% or more at stores in the Asian nation. 

Markets slip

A volatile week in global markets seems set to end on a down note as gauges pull back this morning. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.6% overnight, while Japan's Topix index closed 0.3% lower. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index had eased 0.4% by 5:50 a.m. as investors rotated into defensive stocks. Ahead of the payrolls report, S&P 500 futures were pointing to a drop at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.599% and gold gained. 

Coming up…

Aside from the jobs number, it is a fairly quiet day on the U.S. economic data front with only December wholesale inventories at 10:00 a.m. and consumer credit at 3:00 p.m. The Federal Reserve publishes its semi-annual monetary policy report at 11:00 a.m. AbbVie Inc. and Canada Goose Holdings Inc. are among the companies reporting earnings. Ireland votes in a general election tomorrow.

What we've been reading

This is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours.

And finally, here's what Luke's interested in this morning

U.S. Treasuries are on track for their worst week since November – but that's not saying much: the decline was smaller than either of the rises in the prior two weeks. Charlie McElligott at Nomura Holdings Inc. outlines the reasons for the Treasuries reversal as follows: markets are presently "numb" to news about the coronavirus, stimulus is coming, and economic-surprise indexes are turning up, among other factors. "Maybe we are complacent, but it looks like 2019-nCoV is peaking as a market important element," says Jeremy Hale at Citigroup Inc. Expectations for the Federal Reserve certainly reflect this. The December 2020 Eurodollar futures contract traded on Thursday with a higher yield than prior to the central bank's last meeting. This retracement is nowhere near as violent as the rally, but there are some early signs that bonds are willing to react to data differently than during January. Bonds extended losses following Monday's ISM manufacturing report, which showed American factories returned to expansion for the first time since July, and again following a blowout ADP report on private-sector payrolls on Wednesday. Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets cautions those expecting today's official employment report to act as a major catalyst for yields. For one thing, a strong ADP report doesn't necessarily mean January jobs will be gangbusters. "Our baseline assumption has been that any strong economic indicators will be readily dismissed as 'old news' by virtue of the simple fact they occurred pre-nCov," he wrote. However, Lyngen concedes that an extremely robust print could reaffirm investors' feelings that the domestic economy is in a much better starting point to deal with any downside that might arise. Key to watch: whether the 10-year yield can break its Jan. 24 closing level, which has proved elusive thus far.

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