Submitted by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,
GDP growth has only two basic components: growth in productivity and growth in the workforce size. That’s it. There are two and only two ways you can grow an economy: increase the (working-age) population or productivity.
In what may be one of the least relevant payroll reports in a long time as the Fed already knows the labor market is doing better quantiatively (qualitatively it has been all about low-paying jobs gaining at the expense of higher paying manufacturing and info-tech positions) and as has further demonstrated it is no longer jobs data dependent, here is what Wall Street consensus expects: total payrolls +200,000, down from 215K in March; a 4.9% unemployment rate; average hourly earnings rising 0.3% (last 0.3%) M/M and 2.4% Y/Y (last 2.3%); on labor force participation
Gloucestershire police are investigating allegations of electoral fraud committed by the Conservative Party ahead of the 2015 general election. The Tory party has been accused of violating key spending regulations over claims that they should have declared the cost of bussing in activists to campaign for constituency candidates on local election expenses, rather than on its national return. RT reports: The probe was sparked by a complaint made to Gloucestershire Police, the source of which has not been disclosed.
In what is the latest confirmation that nobody believes the "rally", the latest fund flow data from EPFR showed that US mutual fund and ETF flows turned sharply negative for stocks and high yield this past week (ending on May 4th). The outflow from stocks was $16.9BN following a $1.29bn inflow in the prior week. This was the biggest outflow from stocks since the Sep'15 capitulation on back of China devaluation.