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US jobs growth recovery; low Euro bond yields; sharp drop in US stocks; Nigeria grows; NZ$1 = US$0.860 TWI = 80.3

US jobs growth recovery; low Euro bond yields; sharp drop in US stocks; Nigeria grows; NZ$1 = US$0.860 TWI = 80.3

Here's my summary of the key news over the weekend in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news of an important US jobs milestone being reached on Saturday.

American unemployment came in unchanged in the latest survey with 192,000 new jobs created in March, almost exactly as expected. Bolstering the outcome were the upward revisions for January and February, adding another 37,000 jobs to those months.

There are now 145 million people employed in the US, and the US economy has now replaced all the 8.8 million jobs lost during the recession. Of course, it still has a long way to go to get back to where it would have been without those losses.

It also means the Fed is unlikely to change its course of eliminating its QE bond buying by September this year.

In the shadow of the US improvements (and the testing times in China), the falls in many European bond yields are giving bond investors there some very big gains. The ECB is signaling their own QE program and market yields for Spanish and Italian bonds have now dropped so far they are lower than US yields.

Benchmark UST 10 year yields are now at 2.73%, while the average yield to maturity on bonds from Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain fell to 2.32% on April 3, the lowest in the history of the euro area.

At 3.17% our 90 day bank bill rate is edging ever higher and is now at its highest level since  February 2011. (It's highest level ever was 9.18% in August 2007.)

It's a holiday in China today, their Qingming long weekend. And here's an interesting factoid; Nigeria has replaced South Africa as the largest African economy following a long boom based on oil exports.

Back in the US, earnings season is about to begin and we may be in for a bumpy ride as many companies are expected to report profits that don't really support their high valuations.

Equity markets fell between one and two percent in New York at the end of the week. Both the oil price, and gold rose. The US dollar fell.

The NZ Dollar starts the week higher following the 'good' US jobs report, at 86.0 USc, the Aussie is at 92.6 AUc, and the TWI is back up at 80.3 this morning.

If you want to catch up with all the changes yesterday, we have an update here.

The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »

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2 Comments

Admittedly it’s a selective Depression, but if you are among the selected, your suffering is real. And the drag that millions of unemployed Americans exert on the economy is real. The downward pressure they put on middle class wages is real. Jobs that paid well in the past no longer do. With labor oversupplied, the plutocrats, empowered by the courts and friendly legislators have wiped out the bargaining power of labor in the economy. ZIRP/QE have encouraged unproductive speculation, not job creation. So there are simply far too many millions of Americans so selected to be the losers, to experience the Depression. All of the money printing in the world, all of the ZIRP, has not helped them and has not reduced their numbers. Nor can it ever do so.

 

 

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/2014/04/unbelievable-jobs-trend-depressio…

 

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