Hurricanes Harvey, Irma sink US employment in September

US employment fell in September for the first time in seven years as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma left displaced workers temporarily unemployed and delayed hiring, the latest indication that the storms undercut economic activity in the third quarter.

The Labor Department said on Friday nonfarm payrolls decreased by 33,000 jobs last month amid a record drop in employment in the leisure and hospitality sector.

The decline in payrolls was the first since September 2010. The Department said its analysis suggested that the net effect of Harvey and Irma, which wreaked havoc in Texas and Florida in late August and early September, was to "reduce the estimate of total nonfarm payroll employment for September."

Economists had forecast payrolls increasing by 90,000 jobs last month. Payrolls are calculated from a survey of employers, which treats any worker who was not paid for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th of the month as unemployed.

Many of the dislocated people will probably return to work. That, together with rebuilding and clean-up is expected to boost job growth in the coming months. Leisure and hospitality payrolls dived 111,000, the most since records started in 1939, after being unchanged in August.
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S&P opens at record high as Irma weakens; Apple in focus

The S&P opened at a record high on Tuesday as Irma further weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, and ahead of the highly anticipated launch of the new iPhone.

The weakening of Irma, the second major natural disaster to hit the United States after Hurricane Harvey, allayed concerns about the severity of its financial impact.

"Investors have gained confidence that the worst is over and concerns over Irma's economic impact seem to have disappeared for the moment," said Andre Bakhos, managing director of Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

All eyes will be on Apple as it prepares to unveil the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone, whose sales will also have repercussions on its rivals and many suppliers.

Apple shares dipped 0.3 percent ahead of the event, scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. ET (1700 GMT).

At 9:39 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 64.64 points, or 0.29 percent, at 22,122.01 and the S&P 500 was up 6.76 points, or 0.27 percent, at 2,494.87.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 16.20 points, or 0.25 percent, at 6,448.46.
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Hurricane Irma: 70,000 in shelters, 3.4 mn may face power cut

Florida Governor Rick Scott on Saturday said 6.5 million people were ordered to evacuate ahead of Irma and that 70,000 people have moved into 385 shelters across the state.

"There's still room for more," CNN quoted him as saying. He said that more shelters would be opened on Saturday.

"Protecting life is our top priority. No resource or expense will be spared to protect families," Scott added.

Meanwhile, Florida Power and Light (FPL) estimated that nearly 3.4 million of its customers could be without power at some point during Hurricane Irma.

If that comes to pass, it will be the largest number of outages they have ever had to deal with, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath told CNN.

"We think this could be the most challenging restoration in the history of the US," McGrath said.

The Governor said that 76,000 customers had already lost power.
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Hurricane Irma kills 10 in Caribbean, heads for Florida

Hurricane Irma has pounded the Caribbean, shredding homes and weather records and leaving at least 10 people dead before honing in on the United States where up to a million people were ordered to flee.

The evacuation of coastal areas of Florida and neighboring Georgia was the biggest seen in the US in a dozen years, as Brock Long, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, warned: "It will be truly devastating.

"The entire southeastern United States better wake up and pay attention."

Barreling across the Caribbean, the rare Category Five Irma yesterday wielded monster winds and torrential rain, wreaking destruction on tiny islands like St Martin, where 60 percent of homes were wrecked, before slamming into the US Virgin Islands.

In its westward rampage, Irma packed winds of up to 185 miles per hour (295 kilometers per hour), an intensity that it sustained for 33 hours -- the longest of any storm since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s.

The latest bulletin from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center put the winds at 175 mph as the storm headed for the Bahamas.

Devastation was left in the storm's wake. The International Red Cross said 1.2 million people had already been hit by Irma, a number that could rise to 26 million.
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S&P, Dow dip as Irma approaches US; Disney also weighs

The Dow and the S&P were slightly lower in late morning trading on Thursday as investors kept a close watch on Hurricane Irma, which was barreling toward Florida.

Indexes were also weighed down by a 3.1 per cent fall in Walt Disney shares, after the company said its Marvel and Star Wars titles would go exclusively to its planned streaming service.

Irma plowed past the Dominican Republic on Thursday after devastating a string of Caribbean islands and killing at least 11 people as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida.

"As the hurricane moves, investors are looking for a better grip on the damage that can be done. There are far-reaching implications now that we have back-to-back ones," said Andre Bakhos, managing director of Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas and Louisiana more than a week ago, had claimed 60 lives and caused property damage estimated as high as $180 billion.

Worries about the impact of hurricanes and weak U.S. jobless claims data sent the benchmark 10-year Treasury yields to their lowest since Nov. 10.

What is on investors' minds is that yields continue to move lower. It gives you an indication that people are still a little bit nervous - about North Korea and what the future holds for the (Trump) administration as far as what it is going to accomplish," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth in New York.
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