Bulls Stay in the Ascendant after ‘Goldilocks’ Jobs Report
Financial markets are very happy with their porridge this morning. Equities are up, yields are soft, and the dollar is trading near a seven-month low. Friday’s just-right non-farm payrolls report, in which unemployment fell and wage gains were surprisingly muted, had a profound impact on investor psychology, convincing many that the Federal Reserve’s much-vaunted “soft landing” scenario is being borne out in the data. The jobs numbers look incredibly positive: 223,000 positions were added in December, the unemployment rate fell back to a 53-year low at 3.5 percent, and revisions showed average hourly earnings growth subsiding to 4.1 percent year-over-year....