The August jobs report landed hot and put a September Fed hike back on the table — payrolls beat forecasts by nearly three times, yields popped, and index futures split, with the Dow soft and the Nasdaq clinging to a small gain into the open.

Futures now

• Dow e-minis — down 152 points, or 0.28%, at 8:33 a.m. ET, per Reuters.
• S&P 500 e-minis — down 17.25 points (0.22%) at 8:33 a.m., and still about 0.2% lower at 9:06 a.m., per Reuters.
• Nasdaq-100 e-minis — up 20.75 points (0.07%) at 8:33 a.m., holding roughly +0.1% as of 9:06 a.m., per Reuters.

The driver is the payrolls print itself. Rate-sensitive Dow cyclicals wear the yield move; big tech is holding up better after Fed Governor Christopher Waller's dovish comments earlier this week.

Macro today

A one-event day. The August employment report (8:30 a.m. ET) showed nonfarm payrolls up 162,000 versus the 56,000 economists surveyed by Reuters expected, with July revised up to +21,000 from an originally reported -23,000. The unemployment rate held at 4.1%, matching forecasts. Trading Economics had consensus at 0.3% m/m and 3.0% y/y for average hourly earnings against 0.1% and 3.2% prior.

Odds of a quarter-point hike at the September 15–16 FOMC moved from 52% before the report to 59% after, per Reuters. Nothing else major is scheduled; the Baker Hughes rig count (1:00 p.m. ET, 447 oil rigs prior consensus per Trading Economics) is the only other item. Context from yesterday still matters: ISM Services PMI came in at 55.4 for August, up from 54.1, with the prices index at a hot 72.6 — the inflation half of the hike argument.

Pre-market movers

• Lululemon — down about 20.4%, per TheStreet, after cutting full-year revenue and profit guidance.
• Guidewire Software — down about 14.5% on a weak fiscal-2027 forecast (TheStreet).
• Fair Isaac — down about 12.2% following an FHFA mortgage-scoring directive (TheStreet).
• Adobe — down about 3.18% (Investing.com) after naming Anil Chakravarthy CEO effective 1 December, with Shantanu Narayen moving to executive chair.
• Volkswagen — up about 6.1% on a restructuring announcement; AMC +5.7% and USA Rare Earth +5.1% (TheStreet).

Earnings & listings

No notable US reports today — Yahoo Finance flagged an empty Friday slate. Oracle is the next big one, with fiscal Q1 2027 results set for 10 September.

Rates, dollar & commodities

• US 10-year 4.782% (+1.8bp), 2-year 4.39% (+5.3bp), 30-year 5.2475% — Reuters, post-report.
• Dollar index +0.3% at 99.23 (Reuters).
• Gold -2% at $4,383/oz (Reuters).
• WTI around $90.55 and Brent near $95.04 earlier this morning (TheStreet); Brent is on course for a third straight weekly gain (FinancialJuice).

The front end doing the heavy lifting — 2s up more than 10s and 30s — is the market pricing policy, not growth or term premium.

Overnight global

The yen extended a second day of gains near 156 per dollar on Bank of Japan tightening expectations, after Thursday's more-than-2% surge tied to intervention chatter. Europe's Stoxx 600 was flat pre-payrolls, with tech and space names outperforming (FinancialJuice).

What to watch at the open

Watch whether the front end of the curve keeps leading — a 2-year pushing further above 4.40% would mean the hike is being priced harder, and that usually shows up in banks, homebuilders and small caps before it shows up in mega-cap tech. Watch whether the Nasdaq's outperformance survives the cash session or fades as it did into Thursday's close. And watch gold: a 2% drop on a jobs print is a clean read on how much of the dollar's recent weakness was a rate-cut bet.

As of 9:25 a.m. ET, 4 September 2026. Sources: Reuters via Yahoo Finance, Reuters via Yahoo Finance (yields), Reuters via Investing.com, TheStreet, FinancialJuice, Trading Economics, ISM, Oracle IR. All prices and levels as reported by these sources, not live exchange data. Automated US market brief for discussion and education only — not investment advice. Verify before acting.