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What the May jobs report means for recession risk & Fed cuts

What the May jobs report means for recession risk & Fed cuts

Yahoo06-06-2025

Treasury yields (^TYX, ^TNX, ^FVX) are edging up as jobs data shows signs of a cooling labor market without tipping into recession. Employers added 139,000 jobs in May, topping forecasts of 126,000, while the jobless rate held at 4.2%.
Brian Jacobson, chief economist and strategist at Annex Wealth Management, and Omar Aguilar, Schwab Asset Management CEO and CIO, break down what the Federal Reserve may do next and how investors should position for it.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
Treasury is selling off a bit today as the latest jobs report bolsters the case for the Fed to hold rates steady, with the labor market showing signs of gradual moderation.
When can we expect to see those cuts from the Fed?
Joining us now, Brian Jacobson, Aex Wealth Management's chief economist.
We also have strategist Omar Aga.
Alright, he is Schwab Asset Management CEO and CIO.
Thank you both for being here with us this morning.
uh, Brian, I want to start with you.
Talk to me about your read on the labor data and just how you factor that into your kind of forecast for the economy at the moment and where we're at.
Sure, yeah, thank you for having me.
So here at Annex on our investment committee, when we're looking at the data, we really do think that it really supports the idea that the economy is resilient enough to basically skirt a recession this year.
We did see some slowing in the payroll's growth earlier this week.
There was a little bit more anxiety because of, uh, the content of the Beige Book, the ISM manufacturing and service indices, the ADP numbers.
All of those are pointing to some sort of almost like kind of fissure.
Of the labor market, but it's not bad enough where it looks like we're going to tip into a recession.
So from the big macro perspective, we think that it supports the idea that we're going to experience some slowing but not stopping of the overall economy, and that should be a bullish indicator for earnings on a going forward basis.
Omar, I want to get your take in your reading your recession probability and what that translates through to for portfolio strategy.
Yeah, well, the, uh, the recession risk, you know, have come down significantly since April.
Uh, I think, you know, we, we went at the high levels of, of risk probability of recession back then, mostly because of reflection of the uncertainty and, and, uh, and the numbers that we saw in terms of potential inflation implications.
Um, I think it's, it's interesting to see just the, the labor market numbers today because.
You know, it, it does show a little bit of slowing down of the uh growth in the uh in, in the labor market, you know, that being said, you know, we also see a significant reduction in the uh in the size of the labor market just a lot of that reflecting immigration policies, you know, that came down by around 600,000, um, so the uh overall the uh participation rate has come.
Down so what that translate into is, you know, it probably is neutral for the Fed in terms of uh decision making and what that means is, you know, probably we're still thinking about early September as the earliest for them to do the first cut because this labor market report, even though it does uh show signs of softening, you know, it doesn't necessarily translate into potentially reduction in inflation numbers.

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