A busy week lies ahead on the United States economic calendar as markets continue to digest the fallout from the US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend.
Volatility will be abundant this week as US stock futures open and react to the weekend’s violence in the Middle East. Crypto markets remained relatively flat on Sunday, but have started their usual Monday morning retreat.
US President Donald Trump provided details on “Operation Epic Fury” on Sunday, stating that the US will “avenge” the deaths of Americans, there will be more US casualties, military operations will continue until “objectives are achieved,” and claimed the entire Iranian military command is “gone.”
It is not World War III, said the Kobeissi letter, pointing to oil prices, which have already erased nearly half of their opening gap higher, and US stock market futures, which are down marginally while gold prices are up again. “Don’t panic. The dust will settle,” they said.
This week sees the release of a lot of labor market reports, which the Federal Reserve looks at to make its monetary policy decisions. The first major report of the week is February’s ISM Manufacturing PMI data, released on Monday, providing insight into the state of the manufacturing sector.
The tranche of employment data begins on Wednesday with the February ADP Employment report, followed by Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday, and the February Jobs Report on Friday, which will also include the January Retail Sales data.
Friday’s jobs report comes after surprisingly strong job gains in January, potentially signaling positive developments in the labor market. The report is expected to show an increase of 60,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll.
“We saw a good January jobs report, but we also have seen a really weak 2025 for the job market, and so the question becomes, where do we go from here?” Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group, told the outlet.
Crypto markets are back in the red today following a positive Sunday. Total cap has dropped back to $2.35 trillion, erasing weekend gains.
Bitcoin was rejected at $67,000 three times over the past 24 hours and has fallen back to $66,300 during the Monday morning Asian trading session. It has been trading sideways for the past three weeks, however.
Ether prices could not hold above $2,000 and have retreated to $1,950 at the time of writing. The altcoins are mostly in the red with larger losses for XRP, Solana, Cardano, Canton, and Stellar.
