Linea Mercati Interview 3/7/25
March 10, 2025Linea Mercati Interview 3/10/25
March 11, 2025“It is clear that the job cuts in the administration are going to weigh,” but they have not yet fully materialized in the official data, he added.
The United States created fewer jobs than analysts expected in February and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1%, the Labor Department said.
Last month, 151,000 jobs were created, more than in January (125,000, revised downward), but less than what analysts generally expected (around 170,000), according to the consensus published by MarketWatch.
A year ago in February, the world’s leading economy had created 222,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was 4% last January.
While this report is not “completely bad, it does not paint a picture of undeniable strength either,” Patrick O’Hare, of Briefing.com, estimated in a note.
The figures for February are published at a time when several recent indicators have been interpreted as signs that the American economy, still generally flourishing at the end of 2024, was beginning to falter since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In a few weeks, President Trump, supported by multi-billionaire Elon Musk, has raised import taxes and launched a forced slimming cure of the federal apparatus.
On Thursday, however, the Republican president backed down once again on the 25% customs duties he had imposed on Canada and Mexico, leading Ottawa to suspend certain retaliatory measures.
In this context, on the bond market, the yield on ten-year US government bonds eased to 4.25% compared to 4.28% the previous day at the close.
Elsewhere on the stock market, values associated with cryptocurrencies welcomed with optimism the creation, by Donald Trump, of a “strategic reserve of bitcoins”, a major mark of support for the cryptocurrency industry, which generously contributed to the financing of his last presidential campaign.
The United States already has some 200,000 bitcoins, according to David Sacks, White House adviser on artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies, which represents a value of approximately $17.5 billion at the current rate.
These assets, resulting from judicial seizures, will be transferred to this strategic reserve, where they will be stored for an unlimited period. No policy of public purchases of cryptocurrencies is provided for by the system.
The Coinbase exchange platform gained 2.70%, its competitor Robinhood gained 0.03% while the “miner” (creators of digital currency) Riot Platforms gained 2.83%.
American pharmacy giant Walgreens Boots Alliance was in demand (+7.46%) after signing a delisting agreement, with investment firm Sycamore Partners preparing to pay around $10 billion to buy back the company’s shares.
American IT company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) plummeted (-15.12%) after announcing a substantial redundancy plan on Thursday targeting around 2,500 jobs, and revenue forecasts below expectations.
American company Intuitive Machines was also struggling (-20.25%) after announcing that its probe that landed on the Moon a little earlier had probably not landed vertically as hoped, a setback it had already experienced last year.
Ready-to-wear group Gap took off by 13.09% after publishing, Thursday after the market, results that exceeded expectations for the fourth quarter of its staggered financial year.
