Payrolls beat
Nonfarm payroll employment blasted expectations in rising 678,000 in February.
Estimates had been for a solid 423,000 rise.
Revisions added a further 92,000 on a net basis for the preceding months, so it was a strong headline result.
Business Insider excitedly spoke of the recovery blasting all previous recoveries out of the water, which is a bit silly given that the economy was basically shut down.
More realistically, payrolls at around 150 million remain well below their February 2022 levels of 152 million.
The unemployment rate remains in a downtrend, then, ticking down from 4 per cent to 3.8 per cent.
The annual growth in average hourly earnings was 5.1 per cent, down from 5.7 per cent.
The oil price has doubled over the past year, to all but $120/bbl, which would normally signal a high risk of recession.
Ukraine continues to dominate the news.
