According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy has added 272,000 nonfarm payroll jobs for the month of May, with unemployment slightly rising to 4%, beating Wall Street expectations. The numbers represent a resilient job market but may impact the Federal Reserve's future policy decisions.
New York Life Investments chief market strategist and economist Lauren Goodwin and Citi senior global economist Robert Sockin join Morning Brief to discuss the latest jobs report and its implications for the Fed and the broader market.
Sockin states his team had been maintaining its July rate cut projection based on two factors: "One, a softening in the labor market, enough of a softening really, that the Fed is getting worried about recession risk and enough cooling in the inflation numbers to justify cuts and then putting more weight on the employment side of the mandate. I think here with very strong payrolls and hot wage growth, it's going to really challenge that call of July."
Goodwin questions whether markets can continue to chart all-time highs: "I think it's challenging on the tactical front. So until we have another round of data, we get inflation data on on Wednesday, another employment report in another month. But with the way that the data sits today, it's challenging to see markets climb infinitely higher."
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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino