Friends
Depending on your economic bias, today’s government unemployment data confirmed what you believe the Fed needs to do. We created 206,000 new jobs in June and the unemployment rate came in at 4.1%. Is the job environment starting to show a few cracks? Probably enough for those who think the Fed should begin to cut rates sooner than later. Is the job environment overall still pretty darn good? Yes, probably good enough for those who think the Fed should not be raising rates at this time. But, for those who are in the don’t raise rates camp, I think they are going to have to square that with the fact that the economy is slowing by many other measures.
Stocks moved higher on the employment data, while interest rates moved lower. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 67 points to close at 39,375. The S&P 500 was up 30 points to finish the day at 5,567. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 164 points to close at 18,352. Gold was up $29 to trade at $2,398 per ounce, while oil was down $.77 to trade at $83.12 per barrel WTI.
This was kind of an unusual week with the holiday falling on a Thursday. Things will get back to normal next week as we start to focus on corporate earnings and a FOMC meeting towards the end of the month. In the meantime, the bulls still hold the high ground.
Have a great weekend everyone.
