This Week
This week featured two heavyweights of economic data: jobs and inflation (and another artificial intelligence-related selloff on Thursday).
Starting with the negatives… annual revisions erased over 400,000 job gains last year, meaning the economy added just 181,000 for the whole year (down from +1.5 million in 2024) – the least in a non-recession year since 2003!
However, the more recent data were better. The economy added 130,000 jobs in January – double expectations – and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3% from 4.4%. Plus, the private sector has started to stabilize, gaining 172,000 in January, compared to losing 20,000 in August.
The CPI report was also positive. Headline inflation fell to 2.4% YoY from 2.7% and core inflation eased to 2.5% from 2.6%, as the contribution to inflation fell for all four major categories: core goods, core services, food, and energy.
Between cooling inflation and an improving but still soft jobs market, markets now expect nearly 65 basis points (bp) in Fed cuts this year, up from 55bp a week ago.
For equities, that wasn’t enough to offset Thursday’s selloff, leaving the Nasdaq-100® down 1% for the week, while 10-year Treasury yields are down about 15bp to 4.05%!
Next Week
Here are the top events I’m watching next week:
- Wednesday: Industrial Production (Jan.)
- Thursday: Initial Claims, WMT earnings
- Friday: PCE Inflation and Spending (Dec.), Real GDP (Q4), Flash PMI (Feb.)
