IT's All About Jobs...

It’s going to be a short one today, as I’m travelling and the day will all hinge around the employment number this afternoon anyway. US equities managed modest gains yesterday on the back of decent housing numbers- well, no worse than expected housing numbers anyway... Can a 20% fall YOY really be called decent nowadays? The sound bites from the USA still focus on more help and new stimuli, so if we get rotten numbers today the Fed may feel it needs to announce something over the next few days, time will tell.
CDX was a couple of basis points tighter and VIX tightened in a little as well, so a good day was had by all. Rentenbank was the main news on the new issue front, issuing $1.25bn 7 years.
So... its back to that jobs report. Census workers are still being laid off (wonder who counts them?) so the jobs total will probably have fallen again, it’s by how much that will decide whether we all go home happy or running for cover again- it was encouraging that the market managed to hold onto Wednesday’s gains yesterday.
Whatever the outcome- have a great weekend