Last Friday’s US jobsreport, certainly the most significant economic data to come out this month,came in well under analyst expectations with 155,000 new jobs being added in the month of November.Analysts had projected that 200,000 new jobs were added last month.

U.S. equities reacted and continued their massiveselloff with the Dow Jones IndustrialAverage trading down 662 points at its low tFriday. Although stocksrecovered slightly, the Dow closed off by 559 points today at 24,388. Aftertrading to a high near 26,000 at the beginning of this week, the Dow gave upover 1,200 points in a single week of trading.

Marketparticipants continue to focus on genuine concerns over the current trade warbetween the United States and China and its effect on the global economy atlarge.

As reported by MarketWatch, “Despite efforts by theTrump administration and its Chinese counterparts to paint an optimisticpicture of ongoing negotiations aimed at reducing trade tensions, investors aredemanding more evidence that the two sides will avoid the imposition of new andexpanded tariffs in 2019, market participants say. Once again, a pair ofadministration officials gave opposing views about those negotiations inseparate television appearances Friday.”

The one-two punch of genuine concern about thetrade war and the jobs report which came in well under expectations added fuelto the fire that the Federal Reserve will have to take its foot off theinterest rate pedal. Although it is still widely anticipated that the Fed willinitiate one last rate hike this month, to be announced at the conclusion ofthe FOMC meeting, recent data suggests that the Federal Reserve will need toslow down its rate hikes next year.