Stocks closed lower yesterday. The small-cap Russell 2000 gave up the most, shedding -1.25%, while the Nasdaq was down the least, giving up just -0.18%.

With one more trading day to go, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are both up for the week. The Dow, the Russell and the mid-cap S&P 400, however, are currently down for the week.

Stocks have been on a tear ever since the election (not to mention all year). And they appeared to take a breather yesterday.

Especially in front of this morning's Employment Situation report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The consensus is calling for 211,000 new, nonfarm payroll jobs to have been created in November (200K in the private sector and 11K in the public). The unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 4.2% from last month's 4.1%. Average hourly earnings are expected to be up 0.3% m/m vs. last month's 0.4% pace. On a y/y basis, it's expected to be up 3.9% vs. last month's 4.0%.

If the BLS estimates are right regarding the 200,000 private sector jobs, that would be in stark contrast to last month's report showing -28,000 jobs lost for October. It would also be up vs. the ADP jobs report from earlier this week that said 146,000 private sector jobs were created in November.

While today's BLS report is the main jobs report this week, we did get a couple of other jobs reports yesterday.

The Challenger Job-Cut Report came in at 57,727 announced job cuts vs. last month's 55,507 announced layoffs.

And the Weekly Jobless Claims Report rose by 9,000 to 224,000 vs. views for 215,000. The 4-week moving average came in at 218.25K vs. last month's 217.5K.

After the close yesterday, we got a bunch of earnings. Lululemon posted a positive EPS surprise of 6.69%, which represented a quarterly EPS growth rate of 13.4% vs. this time last year. They were up 10.5% in after-hours trade.

Ulta Beauty posted a positive EPS surprise of 15.0%, for a quarterly EPS growth rate of 1.38%. They were up 12.1% in after-hours.

And Docusign posted a positive EPS surprise of 4.65%, for a quarterly EPS growth rate of 13.9%. They were up 14.7% in after-hours.

Although, not all positive EPS surprises saw gains. Samsara posted a positive EPS surprise of 75.0%, for a quarterly EPS growth rate of 75% as well, not to mention a sales growth of 35.6%, but was nevertheless trading lower by more than -9% in after-hours trade.

In addition to this morning's Employment report, we'll also get the Baker Hughes Rig Count report, Consumer Credit, and Consumer Sentiment (another important report given that roughly 70% of our GDP comes from consumer spending, and an upbeat consumer is a spending consumer).

After today's Employment report, the market will shift its focus back to inflation with next week's CPI and PPI reports.

Today's jobs report and next week's inflation reports will be the last key pieces of data the Fed will get before their next meeting the following week.

For now, outside of any drastic surprises one way or the other, the expectation is for another -25 basis point rate cut later this month. And the CME's FedWatch Tool now puts the odds of that happening at 70.1%. That's down a bit from yesterday's 77.5%, but up from 60.8% from a few weeks ago.

The employment report comes out at 8:30 AM ET.

Best,