Tonight is quite interesting — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is releasing two non-farm employment reports simultaneously, covering October and November data. This delay was due to the previous government shutdown.

What’s the background? The Federal Reserve has already completed its third rate cut this year, and discussions about whether to continue cutting rates in January are heating up. Powell’s recent stance has been clear — the focus is on protecting employment, and this shift has signaled a new direction to the market.

Here’s the interesting part — the market has now formed a new consensus, believing that weak employment data might actually reinforce expectations of further rate cuts by the Fed. In other words, bad news could be interpreted as good news, pushing U.S. stocks higher. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s quite common during a rate-cutting cycle.

It’s important to note that since the household survey was paused during the government shutdown, the data quality of these two reports might have some subtle differences, and market reactions may not be particularly intense. However, for macro-focused traders, this remains an important observation window.