Hello friends and Fortune readers.
Wall Street futures are higher this morning ahead of the all-important payrolls report later (more below). European markets are still reeling from the European Central Bank’s failure to live up to their bloated expectations on Thursday, and as markets reel in their hopes for more ECB stimulus, the euro is pushing higher against the dollar to $1.0868, over 3c above where it was this time yesterday. Crude oil futures are recovering at $41.77 a barrel, as traders swallow their disappointment over yesterday’s seemingly unfounded rumors of a production cut to support prices.
Today’s must-read story is from Fortune‘s Matthew Ingram and it calls YouTube’s subscription streaming service, called YouTube Red, “a Trojan horse” in the battle over television viewers, particularly with the Alphabet (GOOG) subsidiary’s huge built-in audience of daily users.
Here’s what else you need to know today.
1. November jobs
The Labor Department is expected to report that the U.S. economy added roughly 200,000 jobs last month, with the unemployment rate likely remaining steady at 5%. The increase pales in comparison to the surprising, 271,000-job uptick in October, but it would still represent a strong month of job growth. This monthly employment report is of particular interest because Federal Officials will be watching closely ahead of their final monetary policy meeting of the year later this month. Many economists expect the Fed to take a growing list of examples of economic recovery into consideration as they likely move forward with a long-awaited interest rate hike.
2. OPEC production meeting
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel of major oil producing nations, meets today in Vienna, where its leaders will discuss the group’s oil output quotas for upcoming months. The meeting comes amid an ongoing global oil glut that worldwide oil prices slumping at less than half of their July 2014 levels, reaching six-year lows.
3. International trade gap
The Commerce Department will release new data for October international trade, with the trade gap expected to have fallen to $40.5 billion from $40.8 billion in September. Preliminary reports for October showed declining exports and imports, with a drop-off in demand both domestically and abroad.
4. More sales gloom for VW
Volkswagen’s (VLKAY) sales in the U.K., Europe’s second-largest car market after Germany, fell by 20% on the year in November in response to the scandal over its doctoring of its diesel vehicles’ emissions data. The figures suggest that the fallout from the scandal is still increasing: the annual decline in sales in October had been half that, at 9.8%. Figures released this week have shown the company’s sales also took a battering in the U.S. and weakened in its most important market, Germany. In the U.K., Ford Motor Co. and GM’s local subsidiary Vauxhall were the main beneficiaries.
5. Canadian economic reports
Canada’s economy is expected to have declined by 10,000 jobs in November, which would leave the country’s unemployment rate at 7%. The employment decline could be due to disappearing temporary jobs that were created for the federal election. Meanwhile, Canada’s trade deficit is expected to have slimmed down in October to $1.27 billion from September’s $1.29 billion deficit.
— Reuters contributed to this post.
