Non-farm Payrolls Night Approaches: Weak Data Expectations, Cryptocurrency Market Awaits Liquidity Trends

At 8:30 PM Beijing time tonight, the U.S. April non-farm employment data will be released, with market expectations of only 62k new jobs added, far below the historical average growth rate. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.3%, while the annual wage inflation rate may rise from 3.5% to 3.8%. The "weak growth + high wages" pattern in the employment market is becoming the current focus of financial markets.

Historically, monthly non-farm job gains below 100k are often seen as signals of a weakening labor market, but Federal Reserve official Logan previously stated that about 30k new jobs per month are sufficient to achieve supply and demand balance. The market's benchmark for judging the employment situation has fundamentally changed. More importantly, the rise in wage inflation, combined with recent sticky CPI data, has continued to cool expectations of Fed rate cuts. According to CME FedWatch data, the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut in June is only 5.2%, and the chance of no rate cuts this year is as high as 72.6%. The rate cut window has dropped to its lowest level in the near term.

For the cryptocurrency market, the significance of this non-farm data goes far beyond the usual: if the data falls short of expectations, it may temporarily boost market hopes for rate cuts, prompting a rebound in risk assets like Bitcoin; but if the data exceeds expectations and wage inflation heats up, it will further solidify the Fed's "long-lasting high interest rates" outlook, and liquidity tightening expectations could intensify market volatility. Currently, the crypto market has entered a wait-and-see period before the data release, with trading volume remaining subdued. Tonight’s non-farm data may become the key variable to break the current sideways stalemate. #美伊冲突再升级