Weekly Market Recap Jun 04, 2017

Last week was “bull market action” – sideways action to digest and then the grind continues higher. Monday was a holiday, while Tuesday and Wednesday saw almost no movement in the major indexes, and then Thursday and Friday brought a nice steady uptrend. Bears remain lost at sea. For the month of May, the S&P 500 gained 1.2% while the NASDAQ surged 2.5%. The Dow was only up 0.3%.

In economic news, on Wednesday the Chicago PMI rose to 59.4 in May, its highest level in 2½ years. The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book said the economy is still growing at a “modest or moderate” pace, appearing to support a June rate increase. On Thursday ISM manufacturing edged up a 10th of a point to 54.9, about even with expectations. But construction spending sagged in April as a strong start to the year started to falter.

Friday was the big economic data point as May nonfarm payrolls data showed the economy added 138,000 jobs last month, coming in below Wall Street economists’ forecasts. The details of the jobs report were also weaker than expected. The number of job gains for April and March were revised lower. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.3% but the decline was largely due to shrinking labor force. Average wages rose 0.2% to $26.22 an hour, in line with expectations.

In the first five months of 2017, the U.S. has added an average of 162,000 jobs a month. That’s down from 187,000 in 2016 and as many as 250,000 a month in 2014, a post recession high.