Stock Futures Are Little Changed Ahead of Jobs Data
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Stock futures are little changed Sunday evening as investors await the release of key reports on the labor market during another abbreviated week of trading, including Friday’s jobs numbers.
At 6:13 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were flat; the S&P 500 futures gained 0.1%; and Nasdaq Composite futures gained 0.1%.
Stocks started out the new year on a muted note. Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 260 points, or 0.6%, to 42,732.13, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The S&P 500 was down 0.48% to 5,942.47, and the Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.51% to 19,621.86.
Stock markets will close Thursday in honor of former President Jimmy Carter, who died late last month. Also this week, several reports on the labor market are expected, including Friday’s jobs report for December. Economists expect the economy added 153,000 jobs last month, lower than November’s reading.
This week also features oral arguments at the Supreme Court in TikTok’s battle against the U.S. government, with a potential ban of the video-sharing app looming later this month.
Among the week’s other economic reports, the Federal Reserve will release the meetings of its December meeting, and three Fed governors are speaking publicly this week. On Monday, Governor Lisa Cook will be at the University of Michigan Law School’s Seventh Conference on Law and Macroeconomics.
Gov. Christopher J. Waller on Wednesday will discuss the economic outlook at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Conference Center in Paris.
And Gov. Michelle Bowman on Thursday will reflect on 2024’s monetary policy, economic performance, and lessons for banking regulation at the California Bankers Association’s 2025 Bank Presidents Seminar in La Quinta, Calif.
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The federal budget has rattled property investors. But the biggest mistake isn’t the tax changes, it’s the conclusion many are drawing from them.
2 min
The recent budget has forced a reckoning for property investors.
Negative gearing now restricted to new residential builds, the CGT discount gone and on paper, the numbers look different.
And many investors are responding by pivoting toward yield, prioritising cash flow over capital growth in a way that property strategists say misses the point entirely.
“The debate has shifted to yield versus growth as if they are opposing forces,” says Abdullah Nouh, founder of Melbourne-based buyers’ agency Mecca Property Group. “But that framing is itself the mistake.”
Nouh, who works with high-net-worth families and investors on long-term acquisition strategy, argues that capital growth remains the primary driver of genuine wealth creation and that the post-budget environment has made quality assets more important, not less.
The numbers make his case plainly. An additional $500 per week in rental income is welcome. A prestige asset appreciating by $1 million over a market cycle is transformative.
These are not equivalent outcomes, and portfolios built around yield at the expense of location and land value tend to generate income while wealth stands largely still.
The more nuanced shift Nouh is seeing among sophisticated investors is a move toward assets where both outcomes can be engineered simultaneously – established homes on substantial land in quality locations, where the existing dwelling can be repositioned, rental returns improved, and the underlying land value compounds independent of what sits on it.
For investors with existing equity, commercial property is also entering the conversation in a more serious way.
Prestige industrial assets, medical centres and long-leased essential retail offer income profiles that residential property in most capital city markets cannot currently match: longer lease terms, tenants covering outgoings, and greater predictability than the residential tenancy cycle.
“The investors who build lasting wealth are rarely the ones who chased yield or growth exclusively,” says Nouh.
“They are the ones who built a strategy they could sustain – one that generated enough income to hold quality assets through multiple cycles while those assets compounded in value.”
The budget has changed the settings. It has not changed the fundamentals.
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