Sometimes — not often, but sometimes — anecdote is more revealing than data. Especially when the data are subject to major revisions, which is the case with most monthly economic data. This is one of those times. Last week’s jobs report — 295,00 new nonfarm jobs in February — was a bit more robust than most experts had expected, and the unemployment rate ticked down from 5.7% to 5.5%. Not bad, but it doesn’t tell us whether the news was good enough to persuade the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy gurus to begin raising interest rates in June. Fed watchers disagree, some saying that a reluctant Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, is now persuaded that it will take an unemployment rate closer to 4% to raise concerns of overheating. With inflation now nil, this reasoning goes, she will keep rates on hold well beyond June. Others note that the relatively robust job creation rate will force her hand by June, which seems to be the view of a majority of investors, who sold Treasuries, driving their price down and, the obverse, interest rates up to a wide premium over German bunds. Which is why the rush to buy dollars accelerated, driving the euro down further, with the expectation that the European Central Bank will help the euro down even more by easing monetary policy.
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