Equity Briefing UK pub stocks and US NFPs

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UK pub stocks

The corporate calendar is extremely quiet today, but it is worth watching pub stocks as England fans enter the weekend with high hopes for their football match against Ukraine on Saturday.

Stocks including Wetherspoons, Mitchells & Butlers and Marston’s have all risen by over 2% since England celebrated its victory against Germany earlier this week.

The fact the quarter-final match falls on a Saturday should bode well for pubs that are eagerly trying to welcome customers back and get cash through the door. Even Wetherspoons, which isn’t showing any Euro 2020 matches, could benefit if people head-out for a pre-match tipple or when punters head out to either celebrate or drown their sorrows depending on the result.

US stocks and non-farm payrolls

The headline event in the economic calendar today is US non-farm payrolls at 0830 ET, or 1330BST. This will provide insight into how many new jobs have been created in June as the US economy recovers from the pandemic, and therefore will impact how US equities perform today.

With markets hovering at near all-time highs, the data could either help propel them to new peaks or cause some of the recent gains to unwind.

The previous figure came in at 559,000 for May and the consensus expects this to rise to 690,000 in June. City Index’s head of research Matt Weller writes that leading indicators point to a below expectations reading in this month’s NFP report, with headline job growth potentially coming in somewhere in the 500-600k range, albeit with a bigger band of uncertainty than ever given the current global backdrop.

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