Welcome to Thoughts in the Market.

I'm Andrew Sheetz, Chief Cross-Assad Stragist from Oregon Stanley.

Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends

across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together.

It's Friday, May 7th at 2pm in London.

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that the United States added about

260,000 jobs in the month of April.

That was much lower than expected, but also offers a good opportunity to talk about just

how important labor market data is in the current environment.

The first point I want to address is that while the state-of-the-jobs market is probably

single, most widely-followed piece of economic data, stock markets and credit markets often

move well ahead of it.

Because hiring and firing has financial and emotional costs, it's just often not the

first thing businesses do in response to changing economic conditions.

And that means that this data can tend to lag.

In 2009 and again last year, stock markets started to recover, even as job losses continued

to mount, while markets peaked in 2000 and 2007, even as new jobs were still being created.

Second, the labor market continues to be heavily distorted as businesses and workers adjust

to reopening.

Job losses have been heavily concentrated in COVID-19-impacted sectors, things like restaurants,

hotels, and so forth, and this brings complications.

Many businesses haven't fully reopened or may try to see how long they can operate with

...