By Amanda Cooper
Jan 7 (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets by Amanda Cooper.
Oil is in the spotlight this morning, under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on social media that Venezuela will be “turning over” up to 50 million barrels of oil to be sold at its market price following the toppling and capture of long-standing leader Nicolas Maduro.
Trump hasn’t given any details on how that would work but it’s been enough to knock the WTI crude price down towards $55 a barrel. Equities are looking a little softer, but with optimism running high over the potential boost from prospective rate cuts and lower energy prices, analysts say the major indexes are unlikely to retreat very much.
We’ll get into what’s happening today below, but first check out the latest episode of the Morning Bid podcast and remember to subscribe to hear top Reuters journalists discuss the biggest news in markets and finance seven days a week.
Today’s Market Minute
FORGET GEOPOLITICS, IT’S ALL ABOUT JOBS
The sense among global investors over the last couple of days is that, while geopolitics can make for more interesting headlines, at the end of the day, it’s good old-fashioned macroeconomics that will win out in terms of what gets things moving. Wednesday brings a slew of data, from employment to monthly orders for big-ticket items. None really have the ability to shake up expectations for what the Federal Reserve might do at its late-January meeting, or beyond. But they might help set the tone for the rest of the week, barring any surprises on the geopolitical front, of course.
The ADP report is likely to take centre-stage. Economists polled by Reuters expect to see a rise of 47,000 workers on private-sector payrolls in December, after a 32,000 drop the previous month. Economists will always point out that very little – if anything – can be extrapolated from the ADP report about the monthly nonfarm payrolls report that lands two days later. But it nevertheless offers a steer, especially as the after-effects of the 43 day-long government shutdown may still be apparent in data collection.
The JOLTS report, meanwhile, is expected to show 7.6 million job openings in November, a measure of demand for labour, down marginally from October’s 7.67 million. The October hiring rate came in at 3.2%, while the quit rate, which is often associated with consumer expectations, eased to just 1.8%, suggesting that the labour market is in a state of what policymakers call “no hire, no fire.”
Fed policymakers have said that employment is their focal point when it comes to deciding what to do with interest rates. Markets right now are pricing in two rate cuts this year, with less than a 50% chance of a third by December. Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report is expected to show a dip in the unemployment rate to 4.5% last month, from 4.6% in November, which would theoretically support the idea that rates do not need to fall dramatically.
But some analysts say a better measure of the overall jobs market in that report is the U6 underemployment rate, which includes part-time and discouraged workers. That rose to 8.7% in November, the highest in more than four years. This could have captured government employees that were furloughed during the shutdown, but the previous available data for September showed the U6 rate hit 8% for the first time since 2021. Ultimately, there’s still a lot of noise in the payrolls data and the smaller reports tend not to be hugely reliable guides for what’s happening on a national level. But when investors are only able to shrug off geopolitics because the macro numbers are telling a story they like, any shift in the narrative could whip up volatility for markets.
Chart of the day
Silver was the runaway winner of 2025 in terms of performance. It jumped 150%, its biggest annual gain on record, topping even gold, which, with a 64% rise, marked its strongest year since 1979.
There appears to be no stopping the so-called “Cinderella metal” in 2026 so far either. It’s gained another 12% since the start of the month and is just shy of late December’s record $83.62 an ounce. It now takes just 56 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold, the smallest amount since 2013. This number was closer to 100 just over six months ago, highlighting the speed at which silver has appreciated in price relative to gold.
Silver has a lot going for it right now. It’s cheaper than gold and enjoys a structural physical deficit – less supply than the world needs. It’s benefitted both from concerns about enthusiasm over AI generating bubbles of risk in the equity and debt markets and from the global build-out of those very AI datacentres, given its use in electronics.
But there’s always a catch. Silver prices are highly volatile and while they generally mirror moves in gold, whatever gold does, silver does bigger and faster. Today alone, the gold price is down around 0.6%, while silver is down 1.6%.
Today’s events to watch
* December ADP private employment
* October durable goods orders
* December ISM non-manufacturing survey
* November JOLTS report
* Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speaks
(Reporting by Amanda Cooper; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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