Futures are trading higher on Wednesday as we reach the midpoint of the last full trading week of the year. Sellers once again took their toll on two of the major indices, while the Nasdaq squeaked out a minimal gain after being down around the noon hour. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.62% at 48,114, while the S&P 500 was last down 0.44% at 6800. The Nasdaq pulled out a small win for the Bulls, finishing the session at 23,111, up 0.23%.
The calculation incorporates the bank's job-growth tracker, which slowed to 50,000 new jobs in October from 85,000 in September, and the government's deferred-resignation program, which will likely cut payrolls by about 100,000 positions. Our job openings and labor market tightness trackers continued to decline, and our newly constructed layoff tracker also revealed an increase in layoffs over the past few months, the bank added, marking the largest employment decline since late 2020.