Wall Street robust ahead of nonfarm payrolls

Wall Street closed higher with modest gains in the first day of September ahead of the key event for the month in the US, being the nonfarm payrolls event that follows what markets have taken as being hawkish rhetoric from Fed officials suggesting that September is possibly a month that the Fed will hike interest rates.

The S&P 500 fell 0.22 point, or less than 0.1%, to 2170.86, while the  financial and energy sectors weighed  on the index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 17.67 points, or 0.1%, to 18,418.75 while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 13.99 points, or 0.3%, to 5,227.21.

From the calendar, US data was a disappointment with the manufacturing sector looking problematic for the US economy again. The ISM manufacturing come in at 49.4, back into contraction territory and posting the lowest level since January. Markit manufacturing PMI also missed expectations as it came at 52.0 against the 52.1 expected.

Valeria Bednarik, chief analyst at FXStreet said in a preview to the nonfarm payrolls, "Market's expectations are of 180K new jobs added in July, which is around this 2016 average gain of 186K. Unemployment rate is expected to tick back lower to 4.8%, from previous 4.9%.  Year-on-year wages growth has fluctuated above 2% for the last four years, slowly grinding higher, but not enough to become a factor, when it comes to fueling consumption, and therefore inflation. In fact, and monthly basis, average hourly earnings are expected to have grow by 0.2% against previous 0.3%."