It’s Payroll Time

The U.S. added 531,000 new payrolls in October, according to today’s monthly job report numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 🙌 Analysts estimated 450,000.

The unemployment rate fell 0.2% to 4.6%, an all-time low for the pandemic. It’s still a ways off from pre-pandemic numbers. As of right now, nonfarm employment is down by 2.8% from pre-pandemic levels in February 2020. At that time, the U.S. had 152.5 million payrolls. In the latest job report this month, it had 148.3 million.

The industries which saw the greatest payroll additions were leisure and hospitality (+164,000), professional and business services (+100,000), manufacturing (+60,000), and transportation and warehousing (+54,000.) 📈

This jobs report is exactly what the Federal Reserve was looking for. Last week, the Fed announced it would begin cutting its monthly bond purchases. However, for rates to start rising, the Fed will probably need a few more big payroll reports like this. 🚀

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U.S. GDP’s Upside Surprise

It was a busy day of economic data and international news, so let’s cover the highlights. 👇

First, the U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% annualized rate during the final quarter of 2023. That blew away expectations of 2% and locked in full-year growth at 2.5%. Strength in consumer and government spending drove the gain, with inflation also progressing downward. The annual core PCE price index rose just 2.7% YoY, down from 5.9% a year ago. 👍

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CPI Brings It Home For Bulls

The Fed’s hawkish tone toward interest rates and inflation kept a lid on the market. However, today’s consumer price index (CPI) data renewed bulls’ hope that we could avoid a “higher for longer” situation after all.

October’s headline consumer price index (CPI) was unchanged MoM and rose 3.2% YoY, below expectations for a 0.1% and 3.3% increase. That was also down from September’s 0.4% MoM rise. 🔻

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Jobs: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Jobs numbers today showed that the U.S. labor market is showing signs of cooling faster than an iced latte in a polar vortex. Analysts expected 180k, but the number came in lower at 150k, missing the mark like a North Korean rocket test. 👨‍🚀

The Good 😃

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Inflation Checkup Before FOMC Decision

Tomorrow, the Federal Reserve will make its last interest rate decision for 2023 and update its economic projections. With the market increasing its probability of rate cuts throughout the last few months, it will be a closely watched and discussed event. 👀

We’ll get producer prices tomorrow morning, but today’s focus was on the consumer price index.

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