After Waller Turns Dovish, What to Expect from Tonight's Payrolls

The August jobs report lands at 20:30 tonight Beijing time. Consensus looks for nonfarm payrolls to add 56,000 — still enough to hold the unemployment rate at 4.1%. What actually moved sentiment was a comment from Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who said recent data is finally showing signs of inflation cooling and that if the next two weeks of data continue that trend, he would lean toward keeping the federal funds target in its current 3.50%–3.75% range. Expectations for a September hike cooled on the back of that, and equities, Treasuries, gold and bitcoin all moved higher together. Worth noting that Waller's position came with a condition attached — it's explicitly contingent on the data that follows, and tonight's payrolls are the first test. If jobs and wages soften together, the dovish case holds up more easily. If the numbers come in firm, particularly with sticky wage growth, hike bets could rebuild and this cross-asset rally would likely loosen with them. Do you expect a hike in September or a hold? And can this rebound extend from here? Flexibly allocate across core U.S. tech equities and diversified RWA portfolios on Bitget — achieve efficient cross-asset allocation and precision risk hedging: https://www.bitget.com/promotion/futures-rwa