Non-Farm Payroll Night: The 'King of Data' that Shakes Global Markets

On the first Friday of every month, the financial world holds its breath for the U.S. non-farm payroll data, a market feast known as 'Non-Farm Payroll Night' that makes this core economic indicator a 'weather vane' for global assets. As a key data point released by the U.S. Department of Labor, non-farm payroll data encompasses three core indicators: changes in non-farm employment numbers, the unemployment rate, and average hourly earnings, covering non-agricultural sectors such as manufacturing and services, intuitively reflecting the true temperature of the U.S. economy.

Why is it dubbed the 'King of Data'? Because it is directly linked to the direction of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy—strength or weakness in the labor market is the core basis for the Fed's judgments on interest rate cuts and hikes. In the combined release of October-November data in December 2025, the unemployment rate surged to a recent high of 4.6%, and the new jobs added fell short of expectations, igniting market enthusiasm for interest rate cuts and creating an unusual market behavior of 'celebrating a funeral,' vividly reflecting this logic.

For global investors, non-farm payroll data is an indispensable trading signal. Strong data often drives the appreciation of the U.S. dollar and rising U.S. bond yields; if the data is weak, safe-haven assets such as gold typically rise in response, and the stock market may also receive support from expectations of interest rate cuts. From cryptocurrencies to commodities, from foreign exchange markets to stock funds, hardly any asset can remain unaffected.

Today, the influence of non-farm payroll data has long surpassed the data itself, becoming the focal point of market expectation games. When employment data is tied to interest rate cut expectations, and when 'the worse the data, the better the market' becomes the market consensus during a specific period, this monthly data release resembles a 'big test' for the global financial market. Understanding non-farm payrolls means understanding the key code of the U.S. economy and mastering the core logic of market fluctuations. $BTC #美国非农数据超预期