The little guys, tough from hard labor, are employed to push the money bags of the rich to the top of the mountain from which the little guys are allowed to jump off.
There was good and bad news in the just released payrolls report: on one hand, February payrolls soared by a whopping 313K, smashing expectations of 205K, but on the other, the closely watched hourly earnings missed, rising only 2.6%, below the 2.8% expected by consensus.
After a barrage of breaking, surprise headlines and geopolitical developments, markets fall back to the familiar rhythm of trading the monthly payrolls (+205K exp), or rather average hourly earnings (+2.8% Y/Y exp.) report.
"We’ve got about $1.5 billion of projects under way right now that use quite a bit of steel, so we were trying to figure out how bad that hurts, depending on where we made orders..."
While non-GAAP, or adjusted, earnings are now at all time highs, and feed into a "modest" 20x forward PE multiple, non-GAAP earnings have yet to surpass their 2013 highs!
Cigna Shareholders appear notably disappointed by this so-called "defensive deal," slamming the shares down over 10% (as ESRX jumps 12%). We note the combined market cap of the companies is modestly lower now - after the announcement...
ECB has unveiled its growth and inflation forecasts (cutting 2018 growth and 2019 inflation expectations); and that has taken the edge of EURUSD as Draghi warns "we can't declare victory over inflation yet."
Having spiked EURUSD and Bund yields with his statement, which dropped the explicit pledge to increase QE if necessary, we suspect Mario Draghi - in his usual baffle 'em with bullshit manner - will walk back this comment in some convoluted way.
The ECB has left all three rates unchanged as expected but was overall hawkish, by tweaking the press release language and removing the easing bias on asset purchases.
London property is in an eleven-month long slump thanks to Brexit jitters and rampant inflation. Norway remains bullish but few others feel the same way.
