Bill Cheney Market Quotations

It fits in with the picture that the labor market is turned, inflation has turned and in a few more months they'll be tightening.

Now we're starting to see that wash out, and we're seeing that the labor market really has been gradually strengthening for most of the first half of this year. And this is fundamentally good news for consumers and for the health of the recovery going forward.

I think the job market is on a roll. Businesses are doing pretty well these days. Profits are growing nicely. I think businesses are at a point where they feel more comfortable adding people.

I think the job market is on a roll.

There is still a big backlog to be made up before it feels like a tight job market. Clearly it's a tighter job market than it was a year ago, and if we continue to add a million jobs a quarter, we'll move in that direction. But I think it will take a little bit of time.

The headline number is absolutely kind of a shock, I think the bond market is probably overreacting. It's a bounce back from September, but we're still not gaining back all the ground lost in September. The underlying trend is still kind of down.

While the labor market may feel like the weakest link in the recovery, really it's the last link. As long as employment doesn't collapse, the recovery will continue to gain strength. As it does, slowly jobs will be added and they will be the fuel that kicks the economy into a higher gear.

In principle, rapid productivity should make wages rise, but it seems that until the job market tightens up a bit, all the productivity gains flow to corporate profits.

It would be kind of like when they put through a substantial emergency rate cut when the market crashed in 1987. I don't think it is evidence of panic to treat what happened yesterday as an emergency. It's an emergency on many levels.

I don't think it really suggests there is any inflation developing -- a 0.3 percent rise in wages is pretty manageable. But it's a pretty positive report; it suggests that the overall jobs market is pretty healthy.