Julia Coronado

It is a very deeply bifurcated economy.

And that's what we see in the consumer sentiment numbers.

A lot of gloom amongst the average consumer facing higher gas prices, facing not a weak labor market, but certainly not the strong labor market they enjoyed a few years ago.

It is a very deeply bifurcated economy, and that's what we see in the consumer sentiment numbers.

A lot of gloom amongst the average consumer facing higher gas prices, facing not a weak labor market, but certainly not the strong labor market they enjoyed a few years ago.

Well, it's a strong report in the headlines, but there's also a lot of noise.

We have 178,000 jobs in March after 133,000 job loss in February.

So averaging through that, it's a pretty low but positive rate of hiring.

Well, yes, it is worrying.

We are in what we call a low hire, low fire environment.

So for those people who do lose their jobs, it's increasingly difficult to secure a new position.

And that's not a sign of strength.

It means it reflects a couple of things.

One, it reflects that the budgets of the statistical agencies have been slashed.

So it's harder for them to collect the data and we get more noise in the data.

And it also reflects an economy that is being pretty disrupted.

So there's a lot of shifts and changes in the sectors that are driving hiring.

And that also adds noise to the data.

My pleasure.

Yeah, I think the longer this conflict drags on, and not only the Strait of Hormuz is closed, but now we're looking at possible disruptions in the Red Sea, the more we worry about disruptions beyond just oil.