Hot Jobs Report Lifts Expectations for Rate Hike

0:00AI is open infinite possibilities for customer experience. And endless complexity because piloting AI tools is easy. Making them work together across a global enterprise is something else entirely. Nice is the CX AI platform that runs customer experience at scale. Uniting agent agents, human agents, and customer intelligence. So the world's leading brands can move forward with confidence. Nice, the proven CX AI leader. Learn more at nice.com. Here's your closing bell brief for Friday, September 4th. I'm Kierbie NMA for the Wall Street Journal. A hotter than expected, jobs report sent US stocks and short-term bond prices lower today as traders bet on a rate hike from the Federal Reserve later this month. All three major indexes, the NASDAQ S&B 500 and Dow, fell a few tenths of a percent. The Dow led the losses dropping half a percent. The US economy added 162,000 jobs in August about triple what economists expected.

1:03That helps remove one obstacle to raising rates. And in a reminder of the inflation pressure facing the Fed, diesel prices hit a new all-time high today at $5.85 a gallon, beating their previous record from 2022. Investors now see a 60% chance that the Fed will hike rates up from 52% before the report's release. Among individual companies, Volkswagen shares jumped 6.5% after it approved a plan to double the number of jobs it plans to cut to 100,000 and cut its model portfolio in half. The active retailer Lulu Lemon cut its outlook for the second time this year, following another quarter of declining sales in its America's business, shares fell 17%. Software for Madobe saw its shares slide after it announced an internal hire to take over as CEO in December. Shares were down more than 6.5%. And the firearms manufacturer Smith and Wesson said sales jumped by roughly a third in the fiscal first quarter, helping it swing to a profit. Shares grew 5%.

2:05Heads up an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WCA reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. AI can transform a single customer experience. What's hard is making it work everywhere. Every interaction, every channel across a global enterprise. That's the difference with NICE. One platform that connects agent to agents, human agents and customer intelligence across the entire customer experience. So instead of managing disconnected tools, you're delivering experiences that get smarter with every interaction. NICE. The proven CXAI leader, learn more at nice.com.