The latest Market Talks covering FX and Fixed Income. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1156 ET - The 24/7 cryptocurrency markets remain open today, while other markets are closed in observance of Good Friday. Cryptocurrency may be the only outlet for immediate reaction to headlines coming out of Iran, say analysts with Coinbase's institutional research arm. "It's one of the few places where market players can find umbrage," the firm says, adding that a defiant Iran may cause investors to keep a level of risk premium on cryptocurrency prices. "We think markets will continue to price a modest geopolitical risk premium into crypto until there is clearer direction on when the conflict could end," say the analysts. Bitcoin is down 0.1% to $66,900, while Ethereum is off 0.8% to $2,052, according to pricing data from LSEG. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
1117 ET - Beneath the strong March jobs rebound, the labor market remains fragile, says Lydia Boussour, Senior Economist at EY-Parthenon. She believes hiring appetite is cooling as businesses grow more cautious in a volatile policy environment, with firms increasingly protecting margins and leaning on productivity gains rather than workforce expansion. "Looking ahead, we expect a largely frozen labor market in 2026, characterized by selective hiring, compressed wage growth and strategic workforce resizing as labor supply remains historically strained," she says in a note. Boussour sees job growth running slightly below breakeven, with the unemployment rate drifting higher toward 4.7%. "Risks are weighed to the downside given the ongoing Middle East conflict, with recession odds at 40%," she adds. (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
1036 ET - There were about 1.9 million people in the U.S. last month that were unemployed even though they wanted a job. That is up from February, when about 1.6 million people wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months, despite not looking for work in the 4 weeks preceding the Labor Department's survey. The number of discouraged workers--a subset of the group who believed that no jobs were available for them--increased 144,000 in March, to 510,000. That marks a reversal from February, when the number of discouraged workers decreased by 109,000 to 366,000. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
1025 ET - The U.S. labor market may be finding its footing again after stumbling a bit in February, says Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at Glenmede. Job growth blew past expectations as the U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March, compared with February's net loss of a revised 133,000 jobs. Still, Pride cautions against taking the headline strength at face value. He points to increasingly volatile month-to-month payroll swings as a sign the labor market is operating at a slower pace, reflecting both demographic pressures and softer demand for workers. He also notes the decline in unemployment appears to be driven more by workers exiting the labor force than by new hiring--a trend that could signal underlying weakness and will be important to watch in months ahead. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
1024 ET - The strong 178,000 headline number for March payrolls gives the Fed a little breathing room on monetary policy, Gus Faucher, Chief Economist at PNC Financial Services Group says in a note. "With the economy still adding jobs at a decent clip there is less pressure on the Fed to cut rates to support the labor market," he says, adding that policymakers can wait and see what happens with Iran and inflation before adjusting rates. PNC's baseline forecast is for the FOMC to keep the fed funds rate in its current range through the rest of 2026 and into 2027. (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
1011 ET - The strong rebound in hiring to 178,000 in March may be "more noise than signal," says Joseph Brusuelas, Chief Economist at RSM US LLP. He thinks methodology changes to the monthly estimate of the birth-death model have injected volatility into the data, and says the three-month average of 68,000 is a better representation of demand for labor and the underlying trend in monthly hiring. "Nevertheless, that is more than sufficient to keep American labor market conditions stable," he says. Brusuelas adds that the key is whether the supply shock from the Iran war working its way through the U.S. economy will damp wage growth at best "or result in an outright decline which will impact the direction of growth and hiring in the current quarter." (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
0954 ET - While the March jobs report delivered an upside surprise, Scott Helfstein, Head of Investment Strategy at Global X, says "risks to the labor market remain elevated and higher oil prices from the Iran conflict could prove an additional impediment in the months ahead." Helfstein believes the better-than-expected March job creation may mean that the Fed continues to hold rates at current levels at its meeting later this month. But he adds, "We continue to believe that rates are probably too high and that continues to show up in the mortgage market." (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
0938 ET - Capital Economics' Stephen Brown says the larger-than-expected rebound in March payrolls mainly reflects a reversal of the strike by healthcare workers and weather effects that crimped hiring in February, rather than being a sign that the labor market is rapidly gaining momentum. "While higher oil prices should eventually support payrolls in the mining sector, the more immediate risk is that the hit to consumers' purchasing power will weigh on demand and therefore hiring in the near term," he says. At the other end of the spectrum, he says there was yet another decline in information and a drop in financial services payrolls. These add to the narrative that AI is depressing hiring in some sectors, "particularly as the muted 2,000 rise in professional services payrolls also masked a 13,200 drop in computer systems design payrolls," Brown says. (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
0931 ET - The U.S. labor market is shrinking, now requiring fewer monthly job gains to maintain a stable unemployment rate. The unemployment rate has stayed low over the past year or so--moving around between 4% to 4.5%--even as job growth has cooled. That is in part because the Trump administration's immigration crackdown has curtailed the supply of workers, meaning that employers don't need to create as many jobs as they used to in order to keep the unemployment rate steady. While economists broadly agree the breakeven rate has fallen, they remain divided on the precise pace. Some think it will take tens of thousands of new jobs a month to avoid a rise in unemployment, while others believe the job market could shrink without leaving more willing workers sidelined. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
0922 ET - The U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March, blowing past expectations and defying concerns about a pending downturn. Job gains were driven in large part by the healthcare and social-assistance sector, which added about 90,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department. That marks a rebound from February, when a large West Coast strike sidelined tens of thousands of workers. Blue-collar sectors such as manufacturing and construction also notched more hiring, helping to offset weakness across the public sector. Federal-government payrolls lost 18,000 jobs, data show. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
0911 ET - Sonu Varghese, Chief Macro Strategist Carson Group, says the latest labor data show that the economy is creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth. But he says "this is going to complicate matters for the Fed, as it makes no sense to even consider rate cuts especially given the magnitude of the upcoming inflation shock." Varghese adds that inflation was already a problem before this latest crisis in the Middle East which brought the surge in energy prices. "Ultimately, it looks like the rate cuts last year were a mistake," he says. (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
0856 ET - Treasury yields rise and the dollar strengthens following a much stronger-than-expected March jobs report. Payrolls grew by 178,000 versus the 59,000 economists polled by WSJ expected. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.3% from 4.4%. Health care added 76,000 jobs last month. Employment in ambulatory health care services rose by 54,000, reflecting an increase of 35,000 in offices of physicians as workers returned from a strike. The 10-year Treasury yield is 4.35% versus 4.31% Thursday, and the 2-year Treasury yield is 3.85% versus 3.79%. The dollar strengthens against the euro and the yen. (patrick.sheridan@wsj.com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 03, 2026 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)
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