Very Strong Jobs Report for October

The October jobs report is out and it’s a good one. The U.S. economy created 271,000 net new jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.0%. Wall Street had been expecting 183,000. That’s the lowest jobless number since April 2008.

The payroll number for August was revised higher by 17,000 while the number for September was revised lower by 5,000. That’s a combined increase of 12,000. The number for October was the strongest report this year. Average hourly earnings were up 0.36%.

This most likely means that the Fed is ready to raise interest rates at their December 15-16 meeting.

The markets are shifting to this news. The stock market looks to open lower. The two-year yield is up to 0.91% and the six-month yield is up to 0.35%. These are both multi-year highs.

The odds of a rate hike next month are now up to 73%. The odds for another hike in June have moved up from 53.4% to 64.2%.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on November 6th, 2015 at 8:52 am

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