Financial Review

…164,000 new jobs in April. Unemployment rate hits 3.9%. Wages flat. How low can we go? How is the labor market changing? Financial Review by Sinclair Noe for 05-04-2018 DOW + 332 = 24,262 SPX + 33 = 2663 NAS + 121 = 7209 RUT + 19 = 1565 10 Y un = 2.94% OIL + 1.36 = 69.79 GOLD + 3.40 = 1316.00   The economy added 164,000 new jobs in April, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%, the lowest level in 18 years. Most estimates were forecasting 185,000 to 190,000 new jobs – so, it was just slightly below expectations but not a big miss; certainly not as bad as the March report, which initially came in at 103,000 and today revised up to 135,000. February’s report was also revised to 326,000, a gain of 2,000. Those are some pretty wild swings from month to month. The 3-month average comes in at 208,000 jobs per month – which is great growth. In April, the year-over-year employment change was 2.28 million jobs. April marked the 91st consecutive month of job gains, far and away the longest streak of increases on re