How will the Federal Reserve spend its next couple of months? Actually, wait until the week ahead is through before making a prediction. The latest bundle of jobs data due out in the coming days will help shape the market’s expectations for interest rate cuts at the central bank’s final two policy meetings of the year, in late October and the second week of December. The market assigned a roughly two-thirds chance that the Fed’s benchmark overnight lending rate would be half a percentage point lower at year-end, according to the CME Group FedWatch tool. Odds of just a single quarter-point reduction by year-end stand at about a third — far from a longshot possibility. The in-line reading on the August core personal consumption expenditures price index did not change the conversation. The Fed typically adjusts rates in quarter-point increments, as it did Sept. 17 when it cut rates for the first time in nine months. At the meeting, a slight majority of central bankers penciled in two cuts. However, there are a number of Fed officials set to speak publicly in the coming days, with their remarks livening the conversation. The point is, where the Fed goes from here is far from set in stone. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has stressed the central bank relies on the data and is not implementing policy on a preset course. Considering the Fed has indicated it’s more worried about the risks to the labor-market side of its dual mandate than the inflation side, investors will be paying close attention to the upcoming jobs numbers. A quiet earnings calendar only reinforces the influence this data drop will have on the stock market, which is coming off a down week. However, it’s heading for a strong September and third quarter, both of which end this coming Tuesday. The wildcard this week is a possible government shutdown when government funding runs out Tuesday. President Donald Trump will meet with top congressional leaders Monday, according to NBC News. Republicans have said they will not make concessions to pass a short-term funding bill, insisting any negotiations can occur during the appropriations process. 1. Jobs, jobs, jobs: We’re watching the usual batch of data during jobs week, beginning on Tuesday morning with so-called JOLTS and bookended with Friday’s release of the September nonfarm payrolls report. The overarching lens through which the data will be viewed: Is the jobs market showing additional weakness, supporting the argument for multiple Fed cuts by year-end? Or, is it showing any evidence of improvement or resilience that could make the central bank reluctant to ease much further, given inflation is still running well above its 2% target? Tuesday morning brings the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The JOLTS report shows the number of available jobs in the economy, as well as the quit and layoff rates. As a measure of labor market tightness, it carries implications for wage gains — and, by extension, inflationary pressures; when there are a lot more openings than available workers, employees get an upper hand in pay negotiations. The JOLTS report is one month behind the official jobs report, meaning on Tuesday we will get data looking at August. In July, the number of unemployed people topped the number of job openings for the first time since April 2021. On Wednesday, we get the private sector employment report from payroll processing firm ADP. Economists are expecting to see job additions at U.S. companies of 35,000 in September, which would represent a considerable decline from 54,000 in the August release. The June ADP report this summer proved to be early evidence that the labor market was much weaker than previously believed, but that only became readily apparent in the wake of the major revisions to the government hiring data that accompanied the August nonfarm payrolls release. Thursday brings the weekly look at initial jobless claims. Last week’s series, which was for the seven days ended Sept. 20, was encouraging, showing first-time filings for unemployment insurance totaled 218,000 . That is below the Dow Jones consensus expectation of 235,000. It also represented a 14,000 decrease from the prior report and lent support to the belief that the early September spike in jobless claims to the highest level since October 2021 was not the start of a sustained pickup in layoffs. The jobs data deluge wraps up Friday morning with the September nonfarm payrolls report. It’s the last monthly employment report before the Fed’s Oct. 28-29 meeting. Economists polled by FactSet expect that the U.S. economy added 43,000 jobs during the month, with the unemployment rate holding steady from August at 4.3%. We’ll also be watching revisions to the August report, which initially showed job gains of 22,000, and the July data, which has already been modestly revised up once to 79,000. 2. Bonds, bonds, bonds: Simply put, we’re going to be closely watching the Treasury market in the coming days, in hopes that the rise in longer-term bond yields has run its course. We took a closer look at what’s happening in the world of bonds on Thursday because, well, stock investors cannot ignore it — especially if, like the Club, they own shares of companies such as Home Depot that need lower mortgage rates to gin up housing market activity. The hope was that the Fed’s easing policy would be accompanied by a decline in yields on longer-term Treasurys, such as the benchmark 10-year note , which heavily influences mortgages. That happened in the run-up to the Fed cut. But in the wake of the actual reduction, longer-term yields have moved higher, echoing the very thing we saw last September when the central bank embarked on its cutting cycle. The 2-year Treasury yield is seen as very sensitive to the Fed’s benchmark policy rate, which directly applies only to what banks charge each other in overnight lending. It’s more complicated when it comes to longer-term bonds, where expectations for inflation and economic growth during the maturity period are major factors that determine what yield investors are demanding as compensation to lock up their money. Of course, what the Fed is doing at any given moment figures into projections for both of those things. But ultimately, bond traders are going to make up their own minds, giving us a bond market that adheres to free market dynamics. So, against that messy backdrop, we will be watching for how the bond market reacts to the week’s slate of economic data. The aforementioned jobs reports occupy center stage, but there’s a handful of other important releases worth calling out. There’s the National Association of Realtors’ pending home sales index on Monday morning. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management’s gauges of activity in the manufacturing and services sectors are due out on Wednesday and Friday, respectively. Finally, this coming Thursday, we get the August factory orders report, which contains updated durable goods orders. Last week’s advanced look at durable goods showed a 2.9% increase following back-to-back monthly declines. With all of these reports, how the bond market responds to the numbers is effectively as important as the numbers themselves. As we saw last Thursday, the better-than-expected initial jobless claims, coupled with a strong positive revision to final second-quarter GDP, added upward pressure on yields. While the core PCE on Friday initially took pressure off yields, the 10-year reversed higher as the day unfolded. Week ahead Monday, Sept. 29 National Association of Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell earnings: Carnival Corp. (CCL) After the bell: Jefferies Financial Group (JEF), Vail Resorts (MTN), Progress Software Group (PRGS) Tuesday, Sept. 30 FHFA House Price Index for July at 9 a.m. ET JOLTS Report at 10 a.m. ET Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Lamb Weston (LW), United Natural Foods (UNFI), Paychex (PAYX) After the bell: Nike (NKE) Wednesday, Oct. 1 ADP Employment Survey at 8:15 a.m. ET Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing PMI at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Acuity Brands (AYI), Conagra Brands (CAG), RPM International (RPM) Thursday, Oct. 2 Initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET Durable Goods Orders (final reading) at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: AngioDynamics (ANGO) Friday, Oct. 3 September Nonfarm Payrolls Report at 8:30 a.m. ET ISM’s Services PMI at 10 a.m. ET (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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