Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 6.1.18 (plus the price of gas)

It is time for the weekly summation, the positive being that average weekly wages rose 3 percent, the best in 7 years.  But this sort of goes along with payrolls being 33,000 higher than forecast, a 2.2% growth rate in GDP and unemployment falling to 3.8 percent.  The negative is the flip of the low unemployment rate, that is that nearly 20 percent of those unemployed constitute the long-term (more than six months) unemployed.  So there's still work to do and the guru who commented a few weeks back that "everyone who wants a job has one" had better look a little deeper at the facts.  This Sunday's bonus is a very informative graphic that clearly shows in a single eye-shot why the price of gas is so much lower in the U.S. than virtually every other country in the world.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 6.1.18

June 1, 2018 6:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending June 1st, 2018

Positives:

1. Average weekly earnings rose 3% y/o/y (the best in 7 years); weekly earnings up 0.3% m/o/m;
2. Nonfarm payrolls rose 223k in May (expected 190k);
3. GDP = 2.2% annualized growth rate;
4. Unemployment rate fell to 3.8%,  (from 3.9%); Jobless claims fell 13k w/o/w from 234k to 221k.
5. Same store sales rose 4.3% w/o/w;
6. Retail inventories rose 0.6% m/o/m, up from previous 0.4% decrease.
7. Consumer confidence came in strong at 128 as expected.

Negatives:

1. POTUS market interference before NFP sets a terrible precedent;
2. Long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks+) was little changed at
1.2 million in May; this accounts for 19.4 percent of the unemployed;
3. MBA mortgage applications fell 2%. Fifth weekly decline in a row.
4.Pending home sales fell 1.3% m/o/m, below the 0.4% expected increase
5. ADP employment report shows growth of 178k, lower than expected 187k.