The next jobs report might give the Fed cover for dialing down its emergency stimulus
 By Anneken Tappe • Sunday, August 29 Good morning. In this week's look ahead: The Fed hopes for a happy jobs Friday, and why you should get your holiday shopping done ASAP. Plus, your weekend reads.
▸ Forwarded this newsletter? Want global markets news and analysis from CNN Business reporters every morning? You can sign up here.  MARKET FLASH Giving the Fed cover  America's jobs market is recovering and the Delta variant hasn't yet shown up in any jobs report. Another month of that trend could give the Federal Reserve cover to start tapering its monthly bond purchases.
What's going on: The Fed began its emergency stimulus plan in March 2020, sending rates to zero and buying billions of dollars of assets to shore up the economy. Although the United States officially exited its brief recession in April 2020, the central bank hasn't eased off the gas yet out of fear of spooking markets and hurting America's still-fragile recovery.
This Friday's jobs report is key for the central bank, which has two mandates: price stability and maximum employment. With inflation rising on the back of the reopening and supply chain issues, the Fed's inflation target is already met and then some: the central bank is looking for inflation around 2%, but prices are actually rising at a faster pace at the moment. Economists both at the Fed and elsewhere believe this will only be temporary. And now that monthly jobs growth has been kicked into high gear, the conditions are just right for the bank to rein in its ulta-accomodative monetary policy.
The August jobs report is expected to show 763,000 positions were added to the economy. That would be a slowdown from the more than 900,000 jobs added in both June and July, but still more than in the spring months. While the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus is beginning to show up in some economic data, including retail sales and consumer sentiment, the labor market seems to have bucked the trend for now.
Why it matters: This will give the Federal Reserve even more reason to get on with its presumed tapering plan. The central bank, which currently buys $120 billion worth of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities per month, is looking for a way to carefully step on the without letting financial markets fall into a "taper tantrum" like they did in 2013. Back then, bond yields spiked after the Fed announced the tapering of its quantitative easing program as the economy recovered from the global financial crisis. The 10-year Treasury bond yield jumped from a mid-high 1% level to more than 3% during that time.
With the recovery coming along and inflation this elevated, the economy probably doesn't need all the extra support from the monthly Fed purchases anymore, some economists believe. By taking its foot off the gas, the central bank would also prevent the economy from overheating. But tapering and reducing the Fed's enormous balance sheet will take some time.
What's next: A strong jobs report on Friday will make it more likely that the Fed will announce its taper plans during its meeting in late September, while a disappointment would push expectations for a taper announcement back to the end of the year, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. So don't be surprised if the stock market sinks if America adds more jobs than expected and rises if the jobs number underperforms forecasts. Some investors believe the markets reaction to a taper announcement might be a little calmer this time around, but we shall see.
But even if the Fed decides to scale back its monthly purchases, it would only cut them by so much. Analysts at Goldman Sachs predict a reduction of $15 billion per meeting.
Even at that pace, bond yields will likely start to rise. The stock market, meanwhile, isn't a big fan of taper talk and investors should brace for more volatility towards the end of the year after a mostly smooth ride sprinkled with record highs so far this year.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has his work cut out for him: Put on the brakes slowly and carefully, while convincing the market that shaving off a few billions of asset purchases every month won't mean higher interest rates right away. This should be interesting.  HOLIDAY SHOPPING Will Delta ruin Christmas?  If you're a fan of CNN Business (and we hope you are!) you've probably seen a ton of headlines lately talking about the holiday shopping season. Yes, it's only August. Yes, Christmas is four months away. But it's time to start planning. Really.
UK food producers and supermarkets are warning that empty shelves could persist through the year-end holiday season unless the government acts to ease a shortage of workers and truck drivers caused by Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.
In an opinion story last week, CEO of home décor company Balsam Hill Thomas Harman wrote his company is paying four to 10 times more than in prior years just to get a container of products from Asia to its warehouses in the United States. And even at those increased shipping prices, the company still cannot get enough cargo space on ocean freight ships to import all the products it hopes to sell this year.
As my colleague Hanna Ziady noted, the vast network of ports, container vessels and trucking companies that moves goods around the world is badly tangled, and the cost of shipping is skyrocketing. That's troubling news for retailers and holiday shoppers.
More than 18 months into the pandemic, the disruption to global supply chains is getting worse, spurring shortages of consumer products and making it more expensive for companies to ship goods where they're needed.
Unresolved snags, and the emergence of new problems including the Delta variant, mean shoppers are likely to face higher prices and fewer choices this holiday season.
Amazon is no haven from higher prices: Online prices jumped 3.1% year-over-year in July, according to a report released last week by Adobe. This isn't a one-month glitch. Online prices began rising soon after the pandemic erupted in March 2020 and that trend has continued.
 UP NEXT Monday: US pending home sales; Earnings from Zoom Video
Tuesday: US consumer confidence; Earnings from NetEase
Wednesday: OPEC+ meeting; US ISM Manufacturing Index; EIA crude oil inventories; Earnings from Chewy
Thursday: US unemployment claims; Earnings from Hormel Foods and Broadcom
Friday: US jobs report for August WHAT WE'RE READING AND WATCHING ▸ Maersk needs green fuel for its new ships (CNN Business) 
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