US Jobs data in focus

1) US Non-Farm Payrolls (May) - 05/06 – despite seeing a sharp 156k decline in February, the US jobs market has by and large looked resilient during 2026. Much of the reason for the decline in February was due to a strike by health care workers, along with cold winter weather which was reversed in the March numbers with a 185k gain. The strong March print was followed by a 115k gain in April, which showed that the US economy was showing stronger jobs growth than at the end of 2025. While the BLS numbers have proved to be erratic in recent months, other measures of job creation have proved to be steadier with the private sector ADP jobs reported showing consistent jobs gains since July last year, with the April ADP report of 109k showing the best number since January 2025. Weekly jobless claims have also remained in the low 200k’s having slipped to as low as 190k at the end of April. There are also worrying signs in the participation rate which has been steadily declining, and is now back at levels last seen in October 2021, at 61.8%. and 1% below the levels seen in November 2023, despite vacancies which appear to be fairly steady at around 6.6m, at pre-Covid levels, although they have been steadily declining from the peaks seen post Covid when they were well above 10m. All in all the US jobs market seems fairly stable despite rising costs, with the May jobs report set to continue that trend of steady jobs growth.     

2) UK Services PMI (May) – 03/06 – Service sector PMI growth collapsed in May, falling to 47.9, down from 52.7 in April, and the sharpest downturn since early 2021. The main cause of this slowdown was a collapse in new orders, along with weaker investment sentiment. One factor, apart from the unrest in the Middle East was the increase in domestic political uncertainty which weighed on sentiment, along with further weakness in hiring trends. Combined with sharp increases in costs which have been driven by energy prices, higher government taxes/levies, along with wage costs and weak demand, the outlook for this sector has deteriorated sharply.

3) Chemring H1 26 – 02/06 – when Chemring reported in February this small UK defence company confirmed its full year outlook with an increase in its order book to £1.36bn, and a Q1 order intake of £122m. While this was lower than the £393m the year before the company also announced it had secured a £22.5m contract for its STORM missile defence centre in January. Expected revenue for FY26, is 85% covered by Q1 revenues, with revenues expected to be weighted more to H2. The underperformance of the shares has been somewhat surprising given the interest that was shown just over a year ago when the company was subject to some bid talk from Bain Capital, which the company rejected, along with no follow up. The increase in kinetic action globally hasn’t helped the share price either despite the company’s expertise in naval and airborne countermeasure technology, along with missile defence.    

4) British American Tobacco H1 26 – 02/06 – when British American Tobacco updated the market in February the company reaffirmed 3-5% revenue growth, 4-6% adjusted profit from operations growth, and 5-8% adjusted diluted earnings per share growth, weighted towards H2. At the end of its last fiscal year momentum for consumers of smokeless products grew 4.7m to 34.1m. Revenue for (NCP) new category products rose to £3.62bn, a gain of 5.5%, although total revenue still fell 1%, to £25.61bn due to currency headwinds. The company also announced a £1.3bn share buyback for 2026. The biggest drag on revenue in 2025 was down to a 10.9% fall in APMEA, while the US and AME saw an improvement in combustibles. For 2026 global cigarette industry volume is expected to decline by 2%, with a transactional FX headwind of 3%.

5) Broadcom Q2 26 – 03/06 – one of the lesser names in the AI story Broadcom shares have gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months, despite a modest setback in December when the shares fell sharply after their Q4 numbers prompted a sharp sell-off. Record Q4 revenues of $18bn, driven by a 74% increase in AI semiconductor revenue weren’t enough to prevent a 10% decline into year end, although some of this may well have been down to end of year profit taking. This weakness continued into March this year due to concerns over an AI bubble, before a rebound which has seen the shares return and surpass the previous record highs seen in December last year. For its Q1 numbers the company beat on expectations with a 29% increase in revenues of $19.3bn, helped by a 106% increase in AI semiconductor solutions of $8.4bn. This is where the main growth area of the business is, with the VMWare segment helping to deliver 1% growth in the infrastructure software segment. Capital returns were $10.9bn in Q1 with $3.1bn in dividends and $7.8bn in share buy backs. For Q2 the company said it expects to see revenues of $22bn.

6) B&M European Retail FY 26 – 03/06 – since reporting back in January B&M European Value Retail shares have largely traded sideways with little in the way of direction one way or the other. This is probably due to uncertainty as to whether all of the bad news is in the rear-view mirror after their profits downgrade of late last year which came about due to an error in its accounts. Back in January the budget retailer said that UK like-for-like sales for Q3 declined -0.6%, although revenue did rise by 1.9% to £1.41bn. On a group basis revenues were up by 2.9% at £1.74bn, with B&M France doing particularly well with £186m in revenues, an increase of 8.5%. December was a particularly strong month in the UK, with LFL sales growth of 3%, however it wasn’t enough to offset a poor October and November performance. January did get off to a positive start on a LFL basis as customers took advantage of clearance sales. On guidance there was a modest downgrade to EBITDA to between £440m and £475m, down from £470m and £520m, which management attributed to ongoing investments in pricing as well as clearance of old stock. With consumers coming under increasing cost of living pressure B&M ought to be well placed to cater the needs of cash strapped customers. The fact that it isn’t living up to these expectations as far as its share price is concerned is somewhat of a mystery. Barring any further unpleasant surprises its shares ought to be doing better.

7) CrowdStrike Q1 27 – 03/06 – in 2024 the name CrowdStrike became front page news after the company delivered a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor security software that caused widespread disruption to Microsoft Operating systems. This faulty update caused the crash of 8.5m systems in what was one of the largest global outages in the history of IT. The financial damage was huge, estimated at $5.4bn, as airlines, airports, hotels, manufacturing businesses, as well as banks, financial markets were all affected along with emergency services. While the error was fixed within hours, the after effects lasted days and the company’s share price tanked hard, halving in value in the space of weeks, although the company did manage to hold onto most of its customers in the aftermath. While insurance payouts covered most of the costs, the reputational impact on CrowdStrike was sizeable with management working hard to restore it. Since then, the shares have managed to recover strongly, albeit in a volatile fashion with two more sharp sell-offs in 2025, which saw the shares lose a sizeable chunk of value, bottoming out at $343, in February this year, before rebounding to the new record highs we see today. At the end of Q4 the company reported a 23.6% increase in revenue to $1.31bn, with annual recurring revenue coming in at a record $5.25bn. The company’s subscription model Falcon Flex saw strong adoption, seeing 120% growth year on year, while client retention came in at a gross 97%. For Q1 2027, the company said it expects to deliver total revenue of between $1.36bn and $1.364bn, and net income of $275.2m and $277.1m. For the full year, total revenue expectations are for between $5.87bn and $5.93bn, and net income of between $1.24bn and $1.27bn.