The prospect of monetary easing by the Fed as early as September regained support after the publication of the NFP (employment report), which for once came in 30% below expectations (and not the other way round, as has been the case since the beginning of the year).

T-Bonds end the week on a positive note, with the 10-year down 6pts at 4.506% (vs. 4.70% at the start of the week), while the 2-year is down 7pts at 4.806% (vs. 5.00% last Friday).

Wall Street can breathe easy: the US economy generated just 175,000 non-farm jobs in April, according to the Labor Department, well below market expectations, which were on average around 250,000.000.

The unemployment rate rose by 0.1 points to 3.9%, where economists had hoped for stability at 3.8%, while the labor force participation rate held steady at 62.7%, and average hourly earnings rose at an annual rate of 3.9%.

In addition, non-agricultural job creations for the previous two months were revised, from 270,000 to 236,000 for February and from 303,000 to 315,000 for March, i.e. a total revision balance of -22,000 for these two months.
The latest NFP also rules out the risk of overheating pay slips, with hourly wages remaining stable over March/April.

In addition, growth in the US private sector slowed less than initially estimated in April, according to the S&P Global composite PMI index, which came in at 51.3 on balance, compared with a flash estimate of 50.9, and after 52.1 for the previous month (traders will note that this is a decline of -0.8 over 1 month, which points in the direction of a slowdown).
Finally, activity in the US service sector fell back into contraction in April, the first time this has happened since the end of 2022, according to the results of the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) monthly survey of purchasing managers.

After 15 consecutive months of growth, the ISM 'services' index measuring the evolution of the tertiary sector dipped to 49.4 last month, falling back below the 50-point threshold indicating a downturn in activity, compared with 51.4 in March.
European fixed-income markets followed the US T-Bonds like a shadow, with our OATs easing by -5.5pts to 2.996% (back below 3.0%), Bunds by -6pts to 2.493% (i.e. -8pts weekly) and Italian BTPs by -7pts to 3.8030%.
British Gilts also eased by -5.5pts to 2.266%.
European figures include a -0.3% slowdown in French industrial production, and a stable unemployment rate in Europe at 6.4% (down to 7.3% in Italy).
The clear easing of interest rates over the past 48 hours is not really supporting gold, which
ended the week below $2,300 (at $2,295) after having sunk to $2,281 at 3:35 pm.
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