Thursday the April PPI came out at a well above expectations number of an increase of 0.5%.
Friday the April CPI (consumer price index) was up 0.2%, and the retail sales were up 0.4% – overall not great news for the bond market as good economic news.
News that is “above expectations” means that economists expected lower.
Because it came in higher, this means that inflation might be kicking in.
The big news of the week, however, was that the people of France picked a new President and it’s Mr. Macron, a 39 year old business man who does not believe in leaving and campaigned on staying in the EU.
His opponent, Ms. Le Pen, was a pro Frexit candidate.
Whether we as outsiders believe one or the other is better for France, the economists and markets around the world were relived, because another country exiting from the EU would cause uncertainty and instability.
We are a world economy now, so something like this would not have been on our radar 15 years ago. But now it’s big news. And big economic news.
After all that good and bad, interest rates remain the same as last week.
Correction: last week I indicated that the April US jobs gained 221,000 it was actually 211,000. My apologies.