GOOD MORNING! Temporary Fed Governor Miran and Treasury Secretary Bessent calling for lower rates had no effect on the markets. It wasn’t new news from those two. In fact, the data released in recent days isn’t supportive of a lot of rate cuts. Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected and announced layoffs at US companies dropped to a 17-month low. It had traders scaling back on the projected path of rate cuts, moving it from the March 18 FOMC meeting to the April 29 meeting. This may change with the release of the December employment report this morning. Thursday’s rotation in stocks reversed Wednesday’s rotation. Defense stocks pushed the Dow up after the White House signaled plans to ramp up military spending. Oil company stocks also moved up on a rebound in the price of the dinosaur juice. Weakness in tech stocks sent the NASDAQ lower and caught the S&P in between the two equity indices. .

     The markets are doing little ahead of December’s employment report. That means there will be a reaction if good, bad or otherwise. The biggest hope is that it is a clean report from the BLS. The consensus in a survey taken by Bloomberg is that 70k jobs were added and that the unemployment rate will tick down to 4.5% from 4.6%. The range of guesses are wide. Later this morning will be the preliminary University of Michigan (which lost to Texas at the Cheezit Citrus Bowl) Consumer Sentiment Index and a couple of Fed speakers. Once that is out of the way, there will be positioning for a weekend in a dangerous world.