October 2026 Jobs Report (November 6): What the S&P 500 Did on All 126 Jobs-Report Days Since 2016, Three Days After the Midterms

The October 2026 jobs report comes out on Friday, November 6, 2026 at 8:30 AM Eastern, three days after the midterm elections and five weeks before the Fed's December 8-9 meeting. It follows a September report that showed payrolls up 29,000 and unemployment at 4.2%, and an October 28 Fed decision that held the federal funds target at 3.75% to 4% on a 10-2 vote, with two members preferring a hike.

Here is what the record says about the day itself. We took every Employment Situation release since January 2016, 126 trading days, and measured the S&P 500 (through SPY, the index ETF) on each one. Jobs-report days are not a directional bet: the index closed up 56% of the time, against 55% on every other day, with an average move of +0.05%. They are a volatility bet: the average move up or down was 0.87% against 0.72% on other days, 31% of report days moved at least 1% (24% otherwise), and the opening gap averaged 0.53% against 0.44%. Most of the move was in by the open: the direction of the gap matched the direction of the close 79% of the time, and the average open-to-close drift was a rounding error.

The date, the time, and what is already known

• Release: Friday, November 6, 2026, 8:30 AM ET, per the BLS release schedule. The November report follows on December 4 and the December report on January 8, 2027.
• The September report (released October 2): nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 to 159.04 million, unemployment 4.2% (from 4.1%), average hourly earnings $37.81, up 0.1% on the month, from the BLS Employment Situation data. The prior two months were +133,000 in August and a 10,000 decline in July. On the day, SPY gapped up 0.86% and closed up 0.74%.
• Fed context: the October 27-28 FOMC meeting held the target range at 3.75% to 4%. Two dissents preferred a quarter-point increase, which makes the November labor data the first major input before the December 8-9 meeting, per the Fed's meeting calendar.
• Calendar collision: the midterm elections are Tuesday, November 3. Our midterm study covers that pattern; this post is about Friday.

What the S&P 500 did on 126 jobs-report days

Method: every Employment Situation release from January 8, 2016 to October 2, 2026, taken from the BLS archive of release dates, matched to SPY daily open, high, low and close from Alpaca's consolidated (SIP) market data. Three releases fell on Good Friday when the stock market was closed (April 2021, April 2023, April 2026) and are excluded; the eleven releases that moved off Friday for holidays or government shutdowns are included on their actual dates. "All other days" means the 2,594 trading days in the same window that were not release days.

Direction: a coin flip, same as any day

• Closed up on 56% of jobs-report days; 55% on all other days.
• Average move +0.05%, median +0.19%; all other days averaged +0.06%.
• Other Fridays without a report closed up only 51% of the time, so the report day is, if anything, a slightly better Friday than an ordinary one, by a margin too small to trade.

Size: about a fifth bigger than a normal day

• Average absolute move 0.87% versus 0.72%. Other Fridays: 0.74%.
• 31% of report days moved 1% or more (24% of other days). Nine report days, 7%, moved 2% or more (6% of other days).
• Average high-to-low range 1.26% versus 1.14%; average opening gap 0.53% versus 0.44%.

Timing: the move happens at 9:30, not at 8:30

The report lands an hour before the open, so the first print already carries it. Across the 126 days the gap and the close pointed the same way 79% of the time, and the average drift from open to close was -0.02%. The practical reading for anyone holding a position through the number: the risk is in the gap, not in the session, and no intraday stop can protect against a gap.

The big ones

• April 4, 2025: -5.85%. The March report was fine; the day was the second session of the tariff selloff. The largest jobs-day move in the sample had nothing to do with jobs.
• January 4, 2019: +3.37%. A strong December report plus Fed Chair Powell's "patient" remarks the same morning.
• October 7, 2022: -2.79%. A solid September report read as a green light for more Fed hikes.
• June 5, 2020: +2.59%. The surprise May rebound after the pandemic shutdown.
• June 5, 2026: -2.58%. The weak May 2026 report, the largest jobs-day drop of this year.
• The others at 2% or more: January 6, 2023 (+2.29%), December 7, 2018 (-2.26%), April 6, 2018 (-2.22%).

By year

2017 was the quietest year, with an average absolute move of 0.35% and ten of twelve report days closing up. 2025 was the wildest at 1.44%, pulled up by the April tariff day and the November 20 catch-up release after the autumn shutdown, which fell 1.52%. 2022, the year of the fast hiking cycle, is the only year where the index closed down on most report days (nine of twelve). The nine report days so far in 2026 average -0.18%, with four closes up; the three largest were the June 5 drop, March 6 (-1.31%) and the October 2 gain.

The week after

From the close before the report to the close four sessions later, SPY averaged +0.32% and finished higher 67% of the time. That is better than the report day itself, but the sample is small and the years differ enough that it should be read as a description, not a rule.

What this means on November 6

• Size your overnight exposure for a 1% gap, not a 0.4% one. A third of report days moved 1% or more. If a 1% gap against you is a problem, the problem exists on Thursday night.
• Expect the direction at 9:30, then expect little. The open-to-close drift averaged zero. Chasing the gap at 9:35 has been a bad habit on these days.
• Watch the two numbers the Fed watches. Payroll growth near zero (29,000 in September, a decline in July) and a 4.2% unemployment rate are what the two hawkish dissents are arguing against. A weak print pulls the December meeting toward holding; a strong one gives the dissenters their case.
• The election is the bigger gap risk that week. Tuesday's result lands before Friday's number. Positions carried into Friday have already been through Wednesday's open.

How an auto-trader handles a jobs-report morning

JorgAI does not trade the first fifteen minutes of any session, and its stock scanners make their first pass after the opening rush has settled, so the 8:30 number is never traded blind. Open positions are checked against their exit rules throughout the session on current quotes; a stop fires only on a price fetched within the last few minutes. What the software cannot do is turn a 1% overnight gap into a 0.3% one: the position limits you set on Thursday are what decide Friday's exposure. Set up an account to see the exit rules and daily limits side by side before a report week, or read how exits behave when prices gap.

For the last two reports and why the market moved against the headline each time, see why stocks rose on the weak September report and why stocks fell on the strong August report. The next scheduled macro release after this one is the October CPI report on November 10.

The figures in this article describe past market data and are not a prediction or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. JorgAI is software that carries out the rules you set in your own brokerage account; it is not an investment adviser. Trading involves risk of loss. When you are ready to put rules on a real account, start here.