The major US equity benchmarks are now being called to open moderately higher, with average gains of 0.5 per cent seen in the major market benchmarks.

In purely quantitative terms the long awaited monthly employment report has come in clearly better than expected, particularly as regards the unemployment rate, which dropped by three tenths of a percentage point in September, to 7.8% (Consensus: 8.2%).

Non-farm payrolls, however, showed a rather lackluster pace of job creation in the private sector. True enough, government hiring recovered a little, but this pattern has left a rather bitter-sweet taste for some analysts.

The length of the average weekly work-week has come in as expected, while earnings per hour were actually slightly better than forecast.

All of the above, of course, is transpiring in the run-up to the next presidential elections.

Shares of Zynga are plummeting by 21% after the company lowered its full-year forecast for bookings.

Constellation Brands on the other hand is up by 2% following its latest quarterly results.

Front month crude futures are off now by 0.5% to the 91.22 dollar mark on the NYMEX.

10 year US Treasuries are down by 14/32 dollars, with their yields trading at 1.72%.

AB

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