The April jobs surprised on the upside at 211K jobs but like all previous gains, the majority are minimum wage jobs. The minimum wage jobs are not delivering the required wage to spur consumer spending, which is reaffirmed by the weak retail and auto sales and the increase in credit card debt, which has moved past the US$1T mark.
Of course the Fed would like to paint a good picture with the unemployment but beneath the sterling 4.4%. But if the unemployment is so good, why more than 90M Americans who are of employable age are not working? And why are more than 40M Americans still rely on food stamps?
Not only that, the US productivity continues to remain weak.
Most of last week's attention was focused on the US debt ceiling deal which will now add another US$1T to the debt before the year is out, the tax reform plan and the repeal and replace of Obamacare. This caused the stock market to rise to yet another record breaking level.
During the same period, which coincide with the golden week holidays in China, gold and silver were smashed below important support levels.
The market totally ignored the ugly unwinding of the commodities trade in China (see chart, source: Zerohedge, Bloomberg). This deleveraging of commodities could have wide impact on the market in the coming days or weeks.
