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(Bloomberg) -- A rally in the Treasury market accelerated on Friday as softening US employment data fueled speculation the Federal Reserve will start aggressively cutting interest rates to keep the economy from stalling. Most Read from BloombergSinger Akon’s Multibillion-Dollar Futuristic City in Africa Gets Final NoticeValencia Follows Barcelona in Crackdown on Short-Term RentalsWhat a Beautiful Bus Stop Can DoA Vast Wetland Park Seeks to Slake a Thirsty MegacityUber and Lyft Strike NYC Deal to

A surprisingly weak U.S. employment report for June has turned Wall Street confidence on a soft landing into near panic that a recession is looming, prompting major firms to change forecasts for Federal Reserve easing this year to more aggressive interest rate cutting. Employers added just 114,000 jobs in July, the U.S. Labor Department reportedon Friday, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, from 4.1% in June, marking an unexpected deterioration in a labor market that had held up surprisingly well during the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate-hike campaign in 2022 and 2023.

(Bloomberg) -- Wall Street banks are calling for aggressive interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve based on the latest evidence that the labor market is cooling. Most Read from BloombergSinger Akon’s Multibillion-Dollar Futuristic City in Africa Gets Final NoticeValencia Follows Barcelona in Crackdown on Short-Term RentalsWhat a Beautiful Bus Stop Can DoA Vast Wetland Park Seeks to Slake a Thirsty MegacityUber and Lyft Strike NYC Deal to Scale Back Driver LockoutsEconomists at Bank of America

(Bloomberg) -- Oil slumped to the lowest in almost seven months as concerns about demand in the world’s two biggest economies overshadowed heightened geopolitical risk.Most Read from BloombergSinger Akon’s Multibillion-Dollar Futuristic City in Africa Gets Final NoticeValencia Follows Barcelona in Crackdown on Short-Term RentalsWhat a Beautiful Bus Stop Can DoA Vast Wetland Park Seeks to Slake a Thirsty MegacityUber and Lyft Strike NYC Deal to Scale Back Driver LockoutsBrent crude slid 3.4% to s

The disappointing U.S. employment report for July unleashed a "Freakout Friday" moment in financial markets and triggered a wholesale resetting of expectations for how much the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates next month. There was much to grimace about in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report card on the job market, including a jump in the unemployment rate to a post-pandemic high and the weakest pace of private-sector hiring in 16 months. The BLS added a big footnote to the first page of Friday's release to say Hurricane Beryl - which slammed into Texas during the employment report survey week and left some 2.7 million homes and businesses in the Houston area without power for days - "had no discernible effect" on the month's data.

But as Powell during his post-meeting news conference repeatedly said the central bank has room to respond if the labor market unexpectedly weakens, markets began a turn. Rate futures prices now reflect about a 17% chance of a 50-basis point rate cut in September, versus about 5% before Powell began speaking. Prices also reflect increased confidence the Fed will cut a total of 75 basis points over its final three meetings of the year, most likely in 25-basis-point increments, bringing the policy rate down to a 4.5%-4.75% range.