The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+1 -- June 1, 2018

Updates

Later, 9:33 p.m. CDT: see notes on the jobs report below, in the original post. Not one mainstream media outlet pointed this out in their ledes (or anywhere in the story, that I could find) and certainly no media outlet had this headline or banner. But Drudge did:

The Drudge link takes you to the Washington Examiner.

Original Post

T+1: first full day that steel and aluminum tariffs have been imposed on the EU, Canada, and Mexico. CNBC anchors, contributors, and analysts yesterday afternoon went nuts over this -- how this would adversely affect the US stock market. So, where are we today? The Dow is up 206 points. It would be up another eight hundred points except for the fact that the May jobs report was so incredibly incredible that it all but guarantees a fifth "Fed" rate hike this year -- probably all before November.

Trudeau: I was fortunate enough (and I use that phrase loosely) to catch the Trudeau press conference when he announced "retaliatory" steps against Trump's tariffs. Stealing a line from The Big Lebowski, "he was way out of his element."

When CNBC carried a similar press conference from Mexico, it was even more ludicrous. The CNBC anchor did all she could to keep from laughing. How was Mexico going to retaliate? Mexico said it would put tariffs on table lamps; cranberries; some types of cheeses; and, pork. Yes, that was the list. Table lamps, cranberries, some types of cheeses, and pork. I don't know where in the US table lamps are made but let's look at the other three:

• cranberries -- Massachusetts -- blue state -- home of modern-day Pocahontas
• some types of cheeses -- Madison, Wisconsin; historically a blue state; California, really, really blue
• pork -- Iowa -- yeah, pretty blue

Warning: adult language --

"You're out of your element, Donny," The Big Lebowski  

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Let's take a look at how the jobs report was reported:

• NY Times: 

• 223,000 jobs added vs 190,00 expected (Bloomberg)
• unemployment rate ticks down from 3.9% to 3.8%, lowest since early 2000
• year-over-year wage growth: 2.7%

The American economy roared into overdrive last month, delivering the strongest job gains since February. The report underscored other recent signs of strength, like robust personal income and spending data reported earlier this week. Indeed, by just about any measure, the labor market is very healthy. The unemployment rate for May was at lows not seen since the heady days of the dot-com bubble.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve are almost certain to raise interest rates when they meet this month, and have said they expect at least one more increase later this year, most likely in September or December. The stately pace of the Fed’s campaign to tighten monetary policy has reassured Wall Street, which has been edgy lately over trade tensions and the prospect of a populist-style government in Italy.

• The New York Times: 

• "Trump's tweet correctly called a good jobs number: DealBook Briefing."
• WallStreet Journal (this story was so unremarkable it has garnered only one comment so far, by the way)

• Yahoo Finance:

• job gains beat expectations
• unemployment rate hits 18-year low
• if the unemployment rate drops another 0.1% (to 3.7%), it will be the lowest since the 1960s
• wage growth better than expected
• labor force participation: 62.7%, a 0.1% decrease from prior month
• U-6, the underemployment rate, "the true unemployment rate" -- at 7.6% is a new post-crisis low; lowest since May 2001