Indexes end up 1%; investors ramp up rate-cut views after weaker payrolls

Indexes end up 1%; investors ramp up rate-cut views after weaker payrolls

By Caroline Valetkevitch

Mon August 4, 2025 4:00 PM

This is what makes Wall Street so much fun. The consensus this weekend was that the very poor Friday performance would be extended into today. Instead the opposite happened with the exact same pattern as Friday only in the black instead of the red and with all three indexes recovering almost all of Friday’s losses. Ironically, all that really changed today was attitude. Friday there was a panic over data showing the labor market was weaker than previously believed. The glass was half empty.  

Today that same data generated ebullient optimism with the odds of a September rate cut suddenly soaring to 84% after being near zero this time last week, plus a strong likelihood for another cut in December. Now the glass was half full. Contributing to today’s rally was also just an old-fashioned case of “buying the dip” which is a good sign indicating investors believe the market is still on the upswing. But volume was well below the 18.37 average coming in at 15.05 billion. 

DJ: 43,588.58  -542.40      NAS: 20,650.13  -472.32      S&P: 6,238.01  -101.38      8/1

DJ: 44,173.64  +585.06     NAS: 21,053.58  +403.45     S&P: 6,329.94  +91.93       8/4

Mon 8-4-25 4:00 pm Indexes end up 1%; investors ramp up rate-cut views after weaker payrolls | Reuters