Tuesday preview: US JOLTS survey, BP in the spotlight

The market spotlight on Tuesday will be on the US jobs market, as the Department of Labor releases its closely followed JOLTS labour market survey for the month of September.

In particular, investors will be looking to see whether job openings have continued trending lower - or not - while keeping an eye on the number of voluntary departures or the so-called 'quits' rate.

According to Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, another decline in job openings in September would be "an unambiguous sign of a tectonic shift in the post-Covid labor market" with both the cyclical and structural catch-up drivers of labour demand softening.

Shepherdson was "suspicious" that the number of job openings had for some time been overstated, but "happy" to accept that the number was now on the descent.

As an aside, in a research note sent to clients, he reiterated his call for an October increase in non-farm payrolls of 50,000, versus consensus on 200,000, on the back of the most recent Homebase data.

"[...] We are sticking to our 50K forecast—and if we're right the shift in the JOLTS numbers will be much easier to take seriously.

"And the Fed will be closer to a pivot, even if policymakers don’t yet want to say so."

Against that backdrop, S&P Global will publish a final reading for its US manufacturing sector Purchasing Managers' Index in October at 1445 GMT (Preliminary: 47.7).

The Institute for Supply Management will follow a quarter of an hour afterwards with the results of its own factory PMI (consensus: 50.0).

Over in Asia, survey compiler Caixin will release the results of its China factory sector PMI overnight (consensus: 48.5), while rate-setters in Sydney will meet to decide on interest rates (consensus: 2.85%).

On home shores meanwhile, at 0700 GMT, mortgage lender Nationwide will release the results of its house price survey for October.

That will be followed at 0930 GMT by S&P Global's factory Purchasing Managers' Index covering that same month.

Across the Channel, Italian new car registration data for October are due out at 1700 GMT with figures for the country's budget year-to-date also set for release.

On the corporate side of things, all eyes will be on oil giant BP as it releases its third quarter results.

The outfit posted a bumper second quarter profit attributable to shareholders of $9.3bn which allowed it to return $3.5bn to investors via a share buyback and to bump up its diviend payout.

It had also managed to slash its debt pile from over $50bn two years ago to $22.8bn, despite the effective tax rate of 65% placed on it as a result of the levy on so-called windfall profits, Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK pointed out.

Nonetheless, as at the end of the prior quarter it had only disbursed $5.8bn of the $14-15bn of capital outlays planned for the year.

As well, year-to-date BP had invested only a pitiful $361m in low carbon energy.

The company had already guided towards an additional $800m charge in the third quarter linked to the windfall tax.

Tuesday 01 November

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

WPP

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Mercantile Investment Trust (The)

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Tetragon Financial Group Limited

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Construction Spending (US) (14:00)

ISM Manufacturing (US) (14:00)

ISM Prices Paid (US) (14:00)

PMI Manufacturing (US) (13:45)

Q3

BP

EGMS

Hellenic Telecom Industries SA ADS

AGMS

Ikigai Ventures Limited Npv, JPMorgan Mid Cap Inv Trust, Murray Income Trust, OPG Power Ventures, VietNam Holding Ltd

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

PMI Manufacturing (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Smith (DS)