Claudia Somm

We got the best possible outcome today.

We knew these revisions were coming.

And again, we can talk about what's behind them.

But to see the most recent readings, we've got some lift in the payrolls in January.

It's just one month, but we got some lift.

And the unemployment rate ticked down.

That underemployment rate where you get discouraged workers and those having just got part time jobs.

That fell to 8% from 8.4% in December.

What we're starting to see is some of the ice melt in the labor market now and things beginning to shift a bit.

We need to keep up that momentum.

My base case is still two rate cuts this year, but we're going to get a lot more information and the Fed is going to watch the labor market extremely carefully.

He got the nomination.

He's not the Fed chair yet.

He needs to go before the Senate.

And I think the hearing, his confirmation hearing, should be a pretty difficult one.

Because right now, the big conversation is about the independence of the Fed.