Employment statistics for December are surprisingly strong.

Hot job market
The US labor market added 216,000 jobs in December. This is far higher than the 170,000 expected by economists polled by Dow Jones and the downwardly revised 173,000 job additions in November. The unemployment rate remained flat at 3.7%, contrary to expectations for a 10 basis point rise. On the other hand, the average hourly wage increased by 4.1% from the previous year, exceeding the forecast of 3.9%.

losing week
US stocks rose slightly on Friday, but were unable to reverse the week’s decline. US Treasury yields rose for the second day in a row, with the 10-year Treasury yield ending at 4.051%. The pan-European Stoxx600 index fell by 0.27%. Retail stocks fell 1.1%, leading the sector’s losses, after data showed retail sales in Germany fell 2.5% in the month, well above expectations for a 0.1% decline.

airplane landing on the ground
The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered a temporary grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 9, which means airlines will no longer be able to use the Boeing 737 Max 9 for flights. The order was issued after part of an Alaska Airlines plane was blown off during a flight, leaving a large hole in the side of the plane.

Possible Apple lawsuit
Apple can’t rest at all. The tech giant could face an antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice on the heels of a stock price cut by Barclays and Piper Sandler, The New York Times reports. The lawsuit could also cover how the Apple Watch works only with iPhones, as well as the company’s iMessage service, which excludes non-Apple devices.

[PRO] Remarkable numbers
The U.S. Consumer Price Index report, released this Thursday, will help investors assess whether the U.S. Federal Reserve is inching closer to its goal of keeping inflation at 2%. It will be a big catalyst for But don’t ignore Friday, when big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America report their earnings.

The headline numbers for the US jobs report are undoubtedly surprising: 216,000 new jobs were added in December, compared to the expected 170,000. The unemployment rate was lower than expected, and average hourly wages were also higher than expected.

The data suggests that the U.S. labor market remains overheated despite the Federal Reserve’s 11 interest rate hikes.

But the numbers aren’t so dramatic that rate hikes could be back on the table. A closer look reveals some weaknesses in the report.

The headline numbers, while disappointing, are unlikely to persuade the Fed to resume raising rates.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox said, “While the Dow Jones estimates nonfarm payroll growth at 170,000, Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial, says the actual He said the range was between 100,000 and 250,000 people.

Also consider how the employment report for October and November was revised downward, indicating that the labor market was weaker than expected last quarter. On an annual basis, employment growth in 2023 was 2.7 million, much lower than the 4.8 million increase in 2022.

The theme of continued but slowing growth was also seen in December’s ISM Services Index, which measures business activity such as prices and inventory levels. The reading was 50.6%, indicating growth in the services sector, which was almost 2 percentage points below expectations and the November reading.

Perhaps that’s why stocks rose modestly on Friday despite the shock in the major payrolls numbers.

The S&P 500 rose 0.18%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.07% and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.09%.

But even those modest gains couldn’t prevent the major indexes from posting their first negative week in a decade. For the week, the S&P fell 1.52%, the Dow fell 0.59% and the Nasdaq fell 3.25%, the biggest decline since September.

Investors hoping for a positive trigger for the market will not remain silent., We hope that December’s consumer price index report will be lower than expected.

—CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.