Friends
This morning’s jobs data was a bit of a mixed bag. Non-farm payrolls came in at 143,000 vs. the 170,000 analysts expected, while the unemployment rate came in at 4% which is a little better than the 4.1% expected. Average hourly earnings were hotter than expected up .5% vs the .3% expected. Revisions to the December payroll number were higher, so as mentioned it really was a mixed bag of results.
Stocks struggled with more retaliatory tariff talk and the hint that today’s jobs data had an inflationary tone to it. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 444 points to close at 44,303. The S&P 500 was down 57 points to finish the day at 6,025. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 268 points to close at 19,523.
We expected a choppy beginning to the year with regards to stocks and that is what we have seen. Earnings season proved to be good enough and the economy continues to chug along. But there is a lot of uncertainty over tariffs and future fiscal and monetary policy, so a bit of sloppiness is really not that alarming.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Jim
