VRAI - Cracks Emerge In Jobs Market

2023-04-09 09:00:00 ET

Summary

• U.S. equity markets snapped a three-week winning streak while benchmark interest rates dipped to seven-month lows after a critical slate of employment data revealed some cracking in the long-resilient labor markets.
• Following its strongest weekly advance in five months, the S&P 500 finished fractionally lower this week, while the Mid-Cap 400 and Small-Cap 600 each posted steeper declines of over 2.5%.
• Real estate equities were among the laggards this week despite continued downward pressure on longer-term benchmark interest rates. The Equity REIT Index slipped about 1%, but Mortgage REITs gained 0.4%.
• The critical BLS nonfarm payrolls report showed that the U.S. economy added 236k jobs in March - slightly below expectations of 240k and marking the lowest monthly increase since December 2020.
• The most relevant inflation-related metric in determining the path of Fed policy - Average Hourly Earnings - was also cooler-than-expected, rising at a 4.2% annual rate and averaging 3.6% over the past quarter.

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