Stocks are mildly higher at midday after a somewhat lackluster monthly jobs report solidified bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates again when it next meets later this month.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., nonfarm payrolls increased 130,000 in August, the unemployment rate was steady at 3.7% for a third straight month and average hourly earnings growth slowed slightly to 3.23% year-over-year from 3.28% in the last report.
In China, the PBOC announced that the required reserve ratio for all banks will be lowered by 0.5 percentage points, taking effect September 16. The reserve ratio for some city commercial banks will be cut by one percentage point, in two steps on October 15 and November 15.
TOP NEWS: New York Attorney General Letitia James released a statement confirming the "bipartisan coalition" she's leading investigating Facebook (FB) for antitrust issues. The team investigating Facebook, which also includes attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia, will focus on Facebook's "dominance in the industry and the potential anticompetitive conduct stemming from that dominance," said James. Shares of the social media giant are down about 2% near noon.
In other antitrust news, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice has launched an antitrust probe into Ford (F), Honda (HMC), BMW (BMWYY) and Volkswagen (VWAGY), which forged an independent agreement with California on vehicle-emissions standards. The Justice Department is looking to determine if the automakers violated federal competition law by agreeing with each other to follow tailpipe-emissions standards beyond those proposed by the Trump administration, according to the report.
Shares of Lululemon Athletica (LULU) are up 7% after the yogawear maker reported quarterly results that several Wall Street analysts called "impressive."
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the other noteworthy gainers following earnings reports are DocuSign (DOCU), which is up 17.5%, Genesco (GCO), up 7% and Zumiez (ZUMZ), up 8.5%.
Among the notable losers was Domo (DOMO), which plunged 35% and was downgraded to Neutral by Credit Suisse analyst Brad Zelnick after the company's "underwhelming" fiscal Q2 results. Also lower following their earnings reports were PagerDuty (PD), which slid 6%, and CrowdStrike (CRWD), which fell 9%.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 84.06, or 0.31%, to 26,812.21, the Nasdaq was up 7.65, or 0.09%, to 8,124.48, and the S&P 500 was up 5.73, or 0.19%, to 2,981.73.
Ticker changed to META
-3.84 (-2.01%)
Ford
-0.025 (-0.27%)
Honda
+0.48 (+1.94%)
BMW
+ (+0.00%)
Volkswagen
+ (+0.00%)
Lululemon
+12.615 (+6.70%)
DocuSign
+8.55 (+18.49%)
Genesco
+2.765 (+7.78%)
Zumiez
+2.35 (+8.51%)
Domo
-8.83 (-35.03%)
PagerDuty
-2.225 (-6.04%)
Crowdstrike
-7.7 (-8.85%)