Following the weak payroll number for July (originally negative but revised up to slightly positive), August payrolls rose 162,000, comfortably above the 53,000-80,000 consensus range, and unemployment held at 4.1%. While some could argue that the type of jobs created were lower wage and still concentrated in education and healthcare, it is clear that this makes the case for a
hold tricky for the Fed.
The upcoming CPI print on the 11th will be closely watched. Couple the jobs numbers with Brent’s round trip, down to USD 94.71 by September 4th after an April 30th high of USD 120.88, then back toward USD 100 in the past week on fresh US-Iran tensions, and the September 15th-16th FOMC is once again a genuine debate between a hike and a hold, not the
hold-with-easing-bias the market had settled into a month ago.
