There's a game of chicken going on with traders wanting to go short but too afraid of month-end demand to risk it. Anyway, nobody wants to be short in a holiday week when anything might happen geopolitically. |
These downside surprises are looking increasingly fishy. |
This report is huge in the big picture, ... With the election over and this good news on jobs we could at last see an unleashing of animal spirits in the economy. |
This speaks to very robust underlying momentum in the economy, which is one of the reasons why the Fed will have to keep going. |
This was actually a solid report. |
Today's report should convince most market participants that the March softness in the data was primarily a one-month phenomenon. Sounds like a recipe for continued 25 basis-point rate hikes for the foreseeable future. |
We are seeing some improvement in foreign economies, but the imports are just so much bigger than exports you would have to have a big slowdown in U.S. demand to really make a difference. I don't expect to see any big improvement in the near term. |
We are still on track for a blowout quarter. |
We expect productivity growth to moderate, and compensation gains and unit labor costs to pick up. Just another piece of the puzzle that points toward more Fed tightening than the market currently expects. |
We have been quite skeptical throughout January because data tend to be erratic around the holidays and the turn of the year. |
We know from low inventory levels that they're going to have to rebuild inventories as economy strengthens, |
We know that a flood of Katrina-related claims is coming. The magnitude and the timing are uncertain, but the figures will clearly be boosted sharply very soon. |
We still do not look for the core CPI to accelerate rapidly, but it is likely to be persistently firmer going forward. At a minimum, core consumer price inflation will be firm enough to keep the Fed on edge and raising interest rates. |
We think the economy will grow stronger for longer than the market and the Fed do. We look for substantial further tightening to be required. |
We're in a pretty quiet time of the year, ... We've been pretty directionless today. Oil hasn't been doing much. |