5 things to start your day

[Bloomberg]( It’s jobs day, Treasuries drop, and China’s problems add up. Payrolls Employers are expected to have added 500,000 positions in September, a number seen as strong enough to keep the Federal Reserve on the path of tapering asset purchases as soon as next month. Strategists surveyed by Bloomberg say the print would [have to be below 200,000]( to cause a major reassessment of the health of the U.S. economy and send Treasury yields lower. Indicators coming into today’s release do point to a strong labor market, with the [initial jobless claims number dropping]( and 51% of small businesses saying they [had unfilled positions in September](. The unemployment rate is forecast to tick lower to 5.1% with earnings to rise 0.4% in the month. Rising U.S. Treasuries [resumed their selloff]( in the wake of the agreement to [extend the debt limit]( into December. The yield on the 10-year instrument traded as high as 1.6% this morning as the short-term relief allowed investors to go back to being concerned about tapering and the inflation outlook. On the latter, the respite from rising oil and gas prices that came in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s [offer to stabilize the market]( may be short lived. Europe is forecast to have [unusually cold weather next week]( with little wind, while oil is [back over $79 a barrel]( this morning after the U.S. Energy Department said that it had no plans “[at this time](” to tap the nation’s oil reserves. China problems  Speaking of energy problems, the extreme electricity shortage in China caused by soaring coal prices is [hitting a huge number of industries](. Economists are becoming increasingly worried that a [slowdown in Chinese output]( will worsen already strained global supply lines. For authorities in Beijing, who returned to work today [after a week-long holiday](, the focus is likely to remain on containing the fallout from problems at China Evergrande Group. Major developers in the country [saw sales plunge in September](, adding to bad news for the highly leveraged sector with investors flee from its debt. China’s [offshore junk bonds]( saw yields hit 16.9% yesterday, with credit traders reporting further falls this morning. Markets mixed It has been a relatively quiet start to the session today as investors await the payrolls report. Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.4% while Japan’s Topix index closed 1.2% higher. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index had slipped 0.3% by 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with energy stocks one of the few sectors in the green as oil rose. S&P 500 futures [were]( flat, gold rose and Bitcoin was back over $55,000. Coming up... The payrolls report is at 8:30 a.m. Canada publishes its unemployment data at the same time. U.S. wholesale inventories are at 10:00 a.m. and the latest Baker Hughes rig count is at 1:00 p.m. Talks at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development resume on the imposition of a [15% minimum global corporate tax rate](. President Joe Biden will speak on the jobs report at 11:30 a.m. What we've been reading Here's what caught our eye over the last 24 hours. - Tycoon behind crisis-era property crash now sits on a [$9 billion debt mountain](. - The [canary in the coal mine]( for higher energy prices. - Musk to move headquarters [from California to Texas](. - Intel [rules out U.K. chip factory]( because of Brexit. - Twentysomethings with fat checkbooks [join the SPAC rush](. - U.S nuclear submarine [hits mystery object in South China Sea](, injuring 11 sailors. - Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov [win the Nobel Peace Prize](. And finally, here’s what Justina’s interested in this morning It’s hard to remember the GameStop saga that fueled one of the most epic short squeezes ever was only earlier this year. Since then, we’ve written about how short interest in stocks has [dropped](, partly because being bearish looks like a bad idea in this market, and partly because no one wants their head ripped off by Reddit again. To avoid a re-run of that, some of the hedging also shifted to the ETF market. All this has seemed to turn somewhat lately. Goldman’s basket of the most-shorted stocks is back near the lowest versus the overall Russell 3000 since May -- meaning that these bearish bets are increasingly paying off. JPMorgan’s prime-brokerage desk has a note out on why this might continue. One reason is that the rotation into risky factors like high volatility and high leverage boosted highly shorted stocks earlier this year. It seems unlikely they’ll see another rally as dramatic as the one from late last year when the re-opening trade began, setting up a better environment for shorts. The bank also observes that hedge-fund shorts have become less concentrated and thus less prone to a r/WallStreetBets-led squeeze. In this sense, the retail tactic of attacking short sellers has always been somewhat limited: There’s power in numbers, but that also means you can’t short-squeeze that many names in one go. After that experience, many fund managers have also learned to keep an eye on those message boards and not put that much risk in shorts against meme stocks. It’s not that hard: many data providers will [scrape]( that for you. Anyhow it seems like retail traders are also reveling less in the short-squeeze game. JPMorgan says they’ve been moving more to ETFs lately. And the Shiba Inu coin [ripping]( more than 170% in a week certainly looks a lot more fun. Follow Bloomberg's Justina Lee on Twitter at [@justinaknope]( Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Follow Us Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Five Things - Americas newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](