ADP Job Data, Q1 Earnings In Focus

We often lose sight of these things once we’re in the thick of earnings season, like we are now, but this happens to be Jobs Week. With the Automatic Data Processing (NASDAQ:ADP) private-sector report coming out for the month of April tomorrow, and the all-important Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) non-farm payroll report on Friday. But on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, Martin Mucci of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) reported small-business jobs and wage growth for last month, and the results are definitely interesting.

Year over year, small business job growth is down 1%, and wage growth is at 2.7% — lower than the 2.9% we saw last summer. This would indicate that those massive corporate tax cuts we saw at the end of 2017 have yet to hit small businesses, or it might be an indication that we might not expect our overall jobs numbers to be notably affected by those tax cuts, after all.

Arizona showed the best annual hourly earnings growth, and Denver was once again the top city for overall jobs growth. Phoenix topped in small business wages increasing, and Tennessee was the state that saw the largest gains in small business employment overall. Manufacturing was up in the month for small businesses, while Leisure/Hospitality came out on top in hourly earnings growth. Overall, for the month, wage growth for small businesses was up marginally.

As far as Q1 earnings season goes, after the bell today we expect results from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Snap (NYSE:SNAP) , among many others. This morning we see plenty of results as well, but we’ve only got time to post a couple:

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) reported a 3-cent beat on its bottom line to 77 cents per share, whereas revenues of $12.9 billion missed the $13.1 billion anticipated. The company restated earlier guidance, which was in accordance with Zacks consensus numbers. For more on PFE’s earnings, click here.

To keep within the same industry — as well as another Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated stock ahead of earnings results — Merck (NYSE:MRK) also topped earnings estimates, $1.05 per share versus 99 cents, but missed marginally on its top-line: $10.04 billion vs. $10.12 billion our analysts were looking for. It also reported in-line guidance with the current Zacks consensus estimates. For more on MRK’s earnings, click here.