Bloomberg’s Matthew Boes has pulled out some interesting charts from the US jobs report:

The US labor force participation rate, which measures how many people are either in jobs or looking for work, remains below its pre-pandemic levels.

It rose slightly to 61.7% in July, from 61.6% in June, still 1.6 percentage points lower than in February 2020.

After July’s payroll gains, the US has now added 16.7m jobs since employment levels plunged in April 2020 during the first lockdown.

But that still leave 5.7m jobs lost, compared to the pre-pandemic level in February 2020 - underlining that the recovery remains incomplete.

The strong jobs gains over the last two months suggest that some of the worker shortages that have weighed on the US economic recovery have begun to ease.

But, the rise in the delta variant of Covid-19 could slow the jobs recovery in the coming months, cautions Richard Flynn, UK director at Charles Schwab:

“The employment data is starting to shine with rocketing payroll numbers. Today’s positive numbers are an encouraging sign for markets that the economic reopening has kicked into a higher gear. This growth has been supported by robust hiring by small businesses which are the largest net U.S. job creators.

“However, overall job numbers are yet to fully bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, and this gap is unlikely to close this year unless we see a string of million-plus job gains each month. While news of more delta variant coronavirus cases is likely to dampen sentiment somewhat, strong earnings and ample liquidity are likely to keep markets and the wider economy buoyant for now.”

Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, is encouraged by the rise in educational jobs last month - suggesting it could help some parents return to work.

“This not only was a strong jobs report by nearly every measure, it also signals more good things to come. The 261,000 jobs added in local government and private education were particularly encouraging.

The lack of teachers has kept many parents, mainly mothers, at home to take care of their kids and supervise their education.

Jason Furman, former top economic adviser to President Obama, says today’s jobs report shows the US has made a lot of progress recovering from the economic shock of the pandemic (although there’s much more still to do...):

Pay also continued to pick up last month, suggesting that some US firms are raising wages to address labor shortages and record vacancies.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.4% during the month, and were 4.0% higher than a year ago, July’s jobs report shows.

We’re approaching the US non-farm payrolls release (1:30pm BST, or 8.30am EDT) - one of the most closely followed data points in global economics because of its role as a bellwether for the US economy.

All indications are that this month’s release - covering the number of jobs, excluding seasonal farm jobs, added in the US in July - will be a strong one.

Estimates vary, as ever, but the consensus is that payrolls increased by 870,000 last month, slightly above June’s 850k jobs gains.

However, Wednesday’s ADP payroll report, which tracks private sector jobs gains, came in lower than forecast (at just 330,000 new hires in July).

As we approach lunchtime in London there isn’t much moving out there.

The FTSE 100 is very flat indeed - the index has moved up by less than half a point - a lesser-spotted 0% move.

The London Stock Exchange Group has held on to the top riser spot, up by 4.4%.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals is the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, down by 7% despite beating revenue expectations.

Morrisons shares have risen by 2.8% after the latest bid from the Fortress-led private equity consortium.

You can see the jump after it was announced in the below graph (although there must have been an error with the feed during that spike downwards).

Interestingly, however, they are now trading at about 279p per share. That suggests that investors believe the latest offer could still be bettered.

The new bid for Morrisons will also include extra financial firepower from Cambourne Life Investment, a subsidiary of the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, GIC.

The investors’ shares of the company after the takeover would be: Fortress - 65%; Koch Real Estate Investments - 22%; and Cambourne - 13%.

Canada Pension Plan Investments will put up 29% of the funds for the deal, but will not have any equity in the supermarket.

The latest bid will put the ball very firmly back in Clayton, Dubilier and Rice’s court.

It came after pressure from Morrisons’ biggest shareholder for the board to talk to investors other than the Fortress group.

Silchester Asset Management, which owns a 15% stake in the UK’s fourth largest supermarket, said Morrisons should “allow more time to respond to other parties who might offer better value to Morrison’s public shareholders” - essentially saying they should hold out for more money.

Morrisons’ board has unanimously backed the renewed offer from the Fortress consortium - perhaps unsurprising considering the fact that they backed a bid that was worth £400m less.

The consortium also includes the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and an investment company controlled by the US billionaire Koch family (who might also prove controversial stewards for a major British employer).

The group (operating through a “bidco”) made clear in their renewed offer that it was interest from another private equity firm that prompted its new-found beneficence: Clayton, Dubilier and Rice (CD&R) is reportedly considering making another offer after its first £5.5bn bid was rejected.

In its statement the investors said:

Bidco notes the speculation regarding a possible counter-offer by CD&R. Bidco remains committed to becoming the new owner of Morrisons and to being a responsible long-term steward of this great British company through the next stage of its evolution. Accordingly, Bidco has engaged with the Morrisons board and its advisers in relation to the value of the original Fortress offer.

The Blackburn-based Issa brothers became billionaires by building up a petrol stations empire, EG Group. It appears they are keen to stamp their authority on Asda.

They will work directly with executives at the supermarket chain after the abrupt departure of Burnley. That suggests that a new chief executive, whoever it may be, will be taking her or his lead from the Issas.

Credit Suisse will repay another $400m to investors into supply chain finance funds linked to Greensill Capital, the investment company that collapsed in March.

The Swiss bank has suffered an annus horribilis. As well as having to pay for the Greensill debacle, its bankers backed Archegos, a hedge fund that blew up, and it is looking at a big restructuring.

It is the fourth Greensill payout so far and means there have been payments of about $5.9bn, Reuters reported.

Together with the cash that has already been distributed and cash remaining in the funds, the cash position is equivalent to approximately $6.6bn or 66% of the funds’ assets under management at the time of their suspension.

Credit Suisse’s’ asset management arm said on Friday:

Liquidation proceeds will be distributed as soon as feasible until the investors receive the funds’ total net collected liquidation proceeds.

Investors will receive notification of these payments. Management fees are waived with immediate effect.

Here’s an interesting story from overnight: Apple has said it will scan iPhones in the US for images of child sexual abuse.

That sounds good - and child protection groups are delighted - but some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to spy on their citizens.

The Associated Press reports:

The tool designed to detected known images of child sexual abuse, called neuralMatch, will scan images before they are uploaded to iCloud. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human. If child abuse is confirmed, the user’s account will be disabled and the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified.

Separately, Apple plans to scan users’ encrypted messages for sexually explicit content as a child safety measure, which also alarmed privacy advocates. The detection system will only flag images that are already in the centre’s database of known child abuse images. Parents taking photos of a child in the bath presumably need not worry.

You can read the full report here:

The FTSE 100 has sagged a little bit more - it’s now down 0.2% today.

But at the top end of the London Stock Exchange this morning is... the London Stock Exchange.

The share price of the owner of London’s stock market is up by 3.9%, after it reported £1.2bn in operating profits in the first half of 2021. Revenues rose by 4.6% year-on-year.

The update reassured investors worried about the costs of its takeover of Refinitiv (which was formerly the data side of Thomson Reuters). The (now completely separate) Reuters news agency explains:

The 300-year-old bourse is trying to transform into a one-stop shop for data, trading and analytics with its takeover of Refinitiv. However the costs of absorbing the data provider have worried some investors, sending its shares down 20% since early March when it gave more details on the integration.

The group said on Friday that about £77m of cost synergies from the Refinitiv takeover have been realised on a run-rate basis. It expects that to hit £125m by the end of the year, up from its previous guidance of £88m.

And there was some good news for long-suffering traders (and, ahem, markets reporters): London Stock Exchange chief executive David Schwimmer said the company has identified an issue that has caused repeated outages on its Eikon data and trading terminal.

“By any conventional yardstick, this is still a very brisk market,” said Jonathan Hopper, CEO of Garrington Property Finders - but there are some signs of a bit more scrutiny from buyers.

He said:

Astute buyers have begun to ask much tougher questions on price. After six months of having things almost entirely their own way as prices rose almost by the week, sellers are finally being forced into a reality check.

On the front line we’re starting to see buyers adopt a more pragmatic view on pricing, and a growing number of sellers are having to rein in their price aspirations.

Could there be a correction (jargon for a 10% decline from a peak) coming in the next year? Guy Harrington, chief executive of Glenhawk, a residential lender, said it might be possible:

Despite flickering, and frankly welcome signs, that the fuel igniting the market may be running low, house prices continue to demonstrate a complete disconnect from economic reality.

Only once the pandemic fallout picture becomes clear, with government stimulus fully withdrawn, and people start returning to the office en masse, will the read across to the housing market become meaningful. 2022 still looks more likely to see a correction of sorts than not.

Let’s get some analysis of Halifax’s housing data from this morning. It showed that UK house prices are still rising rapidly, but the pace of growth appears to be slowing.

Jan Crosby, UK head of infrastructure, building and construction at KPMG, an accountancy firm, said:

While the market is buoyant, overall annual growth is slowing and we are seeing much higher demand than supply, with owners nervous about putting their properties up for sale in case they can’t find the right home to buy, leading to low stock for estate agents.

Then again, higher demand than supply usually means one thing: price rises! That could mean average selling prices stay the same, even if the volume of sales falls away somewhat.

Martin Beck, senior economic advisor to the EY Item Club, an accountant-backed forecaster, argued that the Halifax data add to good reasons to think house prices will stay elevated. He said:

July’s rise in prices on the Halifax measure contrasted with a fall in Nationwide’s index. But it offers some tentative evidence that the tapering of the stamp duty holiday on 30 June has not affected the housing market too much and that other factors have continued to support house prices. These include government support to household incomes and ultra-low mortgage rates. While the former, notably the furlough scheme, will finish in the autumn, there seems little prospect of interest rates rising until well into next year, even after August’s MPC meeting delivered a more hawkish tone.

The pandemic has also had potentially long-lasting effects on property preferences, including a ‘race for space’ as people seek larger homes in a world of more home working. There is plenty of fuel for property deposits provided by the substantial savings accumulated by households during lockdowns. Meanwhile job and incomes losses during the pandemic have disproportionately affected younger, lower-paid, people who are generally not in the market to buy a property.

Millions of homes will be forced to pay some of the highest energy bills for the last decade after the industry regulator gave suppliers the green light to raise their prices by up to £153 a year.

Households across Great Britain that use a default energy tariff to buy their gas and electricity can expect a sharp increase in their bills from October this year after the regulator lifted its energy price cap for the winter.

Ofgem said gas prices have risen to a record high in Europe “due to a recovery in global demand and tighter supplies”, which is increasing the cost of heating homes and pushing up electricity prices.

You can read the full report here:

It’s looking very much like a Friday in August on Europe’s stock markets. The FTSE 100 has eased to a gentle decline in early trades, down eight points, or 0.1%, to 7,111 points.

Here are the opening snaps from Europe’s main markets:

• FRANCE’S CAC 40 DOWN 0.1%
• SPAIN’S IBEX FLAT
• EURO STOXX 600 INDEX DOWN 0.1%; EURO ZONE BLUE CHIPS DOWN 0.1%
• GERMANY’S DAX UP 0.2%