Base

Fed officials said in statements this spring that job market weakness might hasten rate cuts but continued strong conditions would not automatically sound alarms, given that inflation has dropped from a peak of 9% in 2022 to near 3% this year. The Fed is targeting 2% and is focused more on inflation data than jobs at this stage. The Fed "will of course take these figures into account," but the latest job data is "unlikely to shake policymakers off the course already charted," said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Elsewhere in the industry, payments companies, including PayPal and Mastercard, are leading efforts to generate more demand to expand crypto beyond the most knowledgeable, tech-savvy users and early adopters. One of the major issues with consumer adoption of crypto and digital assets has been the user experience, according to James Wester, research director for digital assets and crypto at Javelin Strategy & Research.