Dumela and welcome to the Metz Market Minute for the Chrisman Commentary.
Bring out your jobs: JOLTS showed almost a million more job openings in April than anticipated, and up 730K jobs from March's numbers. It's the highest since November 2024. ADP was similar: +122K payrolls. CG&C showed job cuts up 16% from April, and jobless claims came in slightly higher than expected, but today's payroll data came in double the expectations. March and April were both revised up for a cumulative 93K higher jobs than previously reported.
Net result? Labor looks steady. That's good news for the Fed.
Everything else? Yawn. Peace or no peace? Yo no se. Listings? Down a bit. Rates? Down a bit. Applications? Down a bit. All the other data was a bit lackluster and showed buyers and sellers waiting a bit. On the flip side...
Construction looks sexy: Manufacturing showed the highest increase since May 2022. Construction spending was double expectations for April, both in residential and private. Oh, and Berkshire Hathaway purchased Taylor Morrison, showing that they still believe in us.
The Lord of the Acronyms: Pulte is "temporarily" heading up the National Intelligence. I'll be curious to see how temporary it is. He'll still be heading up FHFA, and is still on the board of FNMA and FHLMC. He now also oversees the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NGA and NRO.
One or two more appointments and he may collect the entire alphabet.