by Calculated Risk on 8/30/2018 06:45:00 PM

From Merrill Lynch on August NFP:

We forecast that nonfarm payrolls increased by 205k in August ... We take signal from our payrolls tracker based on internal BAC data which increased by 245k in August, though we are fading our official forecast as nonfarm payrolls has tended to grow below trend in August in the first estimate by 40k since 2012.
...
We expect average hourly earnings to increase by 0.3% mom ... wages should grow by 2.8% yoy ... We look for the unemployment rate to tick down by 0.1pp to 3.8% ... owing to strong job gains and little change in the labor force participation rate at 62.9%.

Friday:
• At 9:45 AM ET, Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for August. The consensus is for a reading of 63.5, down from 65.5 in July.

• At 10:00 AM, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for August). The consensus is for a reading of 95.3.