Jobs smash forecasts


No one saw this coming, but today's US nonfarm payrolls report has come out really strong. Stock have surged, gold has dumped and the dollar has rallied sharply against haven currencies...



Today’s US jobs numbers have absolutely smashed expectations and risk assets are loving it. US equity index futures have surged higher, while safe-haven gold has been smacked down. Virtually no one had expected a positive NFP number, let alone 2.5 million job gains which helped to lower the unemployment rate to 13.3%. If the numbers are accurate, this suggests the economy is turning around faster than most people had expected. But at the same time let’s not draw too many conclusions from just one jobs report. We now want to see continued job gains and improvements in other macro data in the weeks and months ahead.

Here are how the markets have reacted so far:
Markets



Back