Winter is Leaving

The US economy added 263,000 jobs in April, revisions pending, which looks night and day from the “disastrous” report from February, where, allegedly, only 20,000 jobs were created. That’s that residual seasonality I was trying to tell you about all winter. Economists are walking around like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, every morning they wake up and it’s like a clean slate. No memory whatsoever of the last ten or so winters, where the data gets dreary because of the weather (or, in this case, the Trump Shutdown) and then recovers into the spring. It happens over and over again, but the recessions calls come out regardless.

Winter is leaving. Rates fell, homes were bought, employment grew, stocks recovered, wages gained, the snow has melted, the ice has thawed. China is stimulating, Japan is a flatline, Europe is awful, par for the post-crisis course. Business as usual.

The funniest part – we’re now at 3.6% unemployment, the lowest monthly unemployment rate since December of 1969. And still the market is betting there’s a 50% chance of a rate cut by the end of 2019. LOL.

Carry on.