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Jobs Report: Goldilocks Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
Goldilocks or bust.
The US economy added 175,000 jobs in April, the BLS said Friday in a release that was amenable to a "just right" interpretation depending on investors' collective mood.
The "whisper" number drifted higher into the print, which means 175,000 counted as even larger de facto miss than the undershoot versus the "official" consensus, which stood at 240,000.
April's hiring pace, as initially reported, was the slowest since October. Revisions lopped 34,000 from February's headl
Probably not enough and too late to put a .25 June cut back on the table, but would seem to boost the odds for a July cut.
It used to be that nfp needed about +100 to keep jobless steady. With immigration way up that number is likely to be 150-200. Yes +175 is ok. Employment tends to be a lagging indicator except for hours worked though. It is reasonable to expect lower growth and lower inflation in the near future. I have been wrong for so long that I would not be so quick to call for a major slowdown, but the economy has probably hit an inflection point. The Fed would be smart to wrap up qt and get cuts going in June. They need to take a stand and get away from rigid data dependency. My 2 cents, which is probably not worth 1c.
This is why we NEED weekly dot plots!
Too noisy. Impossible to extrapolate.
Noisy so look at 242K 3M MVA, that’s a fairly hottish pace.
Hard not to believe that those pulling the fiscal levers won’t do everything possible to keep the consumers consuming and the stock market going- as that is the best path to secure an electoral victory in November.