Список проголосовавших за комментарий " <table class="BriefingDataTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr> <td class="tickerColumn"> </td> <td class="articleColumn">Midday Market Summary: Investors Display Caution in the First Half of Wednesday's Session<p>Investors have remained cautious in the first half of Wednesday's range-bound session, leaving the major averages near their unchanged marks at midday. The S&P 500 (unch) and the Dow (-0.1%) trade relatively flat while the Nasdaq (+0.3%) holds a modest gain.</p><p>The latest ADP National Employment Report gave equity futures a little bump this morning after clobbering consensus estimates. The reading showed that a whopping 298,000 private-sector jobs were added in February (Briefing.com consensus 180,000).</p><p>In light of the hotter than expected reading, economists will surely readjust their estimates for nonfarm payroll gains (Briefing.com consensus 188,000) in Friday's Employment Situation Report for February, which is regarded as the last potential barrier for a rate hike in March.</p><p>The CME Fed Watch Tool now assigns an implied probability of 86.4% to a March rate hike, up from 81.9% on Tuesday. The U.S. Dollar Index (102.13, +0.32) has responded accordingly, up 0.3%, as traders prepare for higher U.S. interest rates.</p><p>In the same breath, Treasuries saw an uptick in selling interest following the latest ADP reading. U.S. sovereign debt hovers near its session low with the benchmark 10-yr yield trading five basis points higher at 2.57%.</p><p>The energy space (-1.7%) has plunged alongside crude oil, which is down by 3.4% following the latest inventory report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The reading far surpassed consensus estimates (+2.0 million) by showing a build of 8.2 million barrels. The energy component trades at $51.32/bbl, its lowest level in a month.</p><p>Just above the energy group are the rate-sensitive utilities (-1.3%) and real estate (-1.2%) sectors. The two spaces are suffering amid today's jump in interest rates. On the flip side, the financial (+0.5%), health care (+0.5%), consumer discretionary (+0.3%), and technology (+0.2%) sectors outperform.</p><p>Retailers have added 0.6% to the <strong>SPDR S&P Retail ETF</strong> (XRT 42.20, +0.25) after the latest batch of earnings reports. Most notably, <strong>The Children's Place</strong> (PLCE 118.00, +18.10) has surged 18.0% after reporting better than expected earnings and issuing upbeat guidance earlier this morning. The company also announced a new stock buyback and a dividend increase.</p><p>Aside from earnings, corporate news has been relatively light. However, <strong>Caterpillar</strong> (CAT 94.34, -1.59) has generated some buzz following a <em>New</em><em>York</em><em>Times</em> article indicating that the company has been accused of tax fraud in a report to federal investigators. CAT's 1.7% tumble has put a lid on the industrial sector's (+0.1%) advance.</p><p>Today's economic data included February ADP Employment Change, fourth quarter Productivity & Unit Labor Costs, January Wholesale Inventories, and the weekly MBA Mortgage Index:</p><ul><li>The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 298,000 in February (Briefing.com consensus 180,000) while the January reading was revised to 261,000 from 246,000.<ul><li>The ADP reading precedes Friday's more influential Employment Situation Report for February, which is widely considered the last potential barrier to a rate hike in March.</li></ul></li><li>The unit labor costs were left unrevised during the fourth quarter, showing an increased 1.7%, which was higher than the 1.6% increase that had been anticipated by the Briefing.com consensus. The productivity reading was also left unrevised, showing an increase of 1.3%. The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 1.5%.<ul><li>The key takeaway from the report is that productivity is low, with the average annual rate of productivity growth from 2011 to 2016 being 0.6% versus the long-term rate of 2.1% from 1947 to 2016. Low productivity gets in the way of a rising standard of living.</li></ul></li><li>January Wholesale Inventories decreased 0.2%, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a downtick of 0.1%. The prior month's reading was left unrevised at +1.0%.<ul><li>The market doesn't typically pay much attention to this release since the full business inventories report is usually released a few days later.</li></ul></li><li>The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 3.3% to follow last week's 5.8% uptick.</li></ul></td> </tr></table>"