It’s still killing it.

In this buzz: Job market is still killing it; Apple Cha-ching!; the Fed and more…

The Big news
The US job market is still killing it, despite some bumps in the economy and issues in the banking industry. More jobs were added and unemployment is going down.

And Wall Street was stoked about the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumping nearly 400 points. Looks like things are looking up in the job market!

• Nonfarm payrolls grew by a whopping 253,000 jobs, way more than the predicted 180,000.
  And get this: the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4%, tying the lowest level it’s been since 1969.

A bunch of industries saw job gains, including professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality.

Plus,
… wages rose 0.5% in April, which is a lot more than the predicted 0.3%. Annual wages are up too, at 4.4%, which is good for workers, but it’s putting pressure on prices.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows inflation running at a 5% annual pace, which The Fed is trying to bring down to a 2% annual level.

This all means
… that the Federal Reserve might decide to raise interest rates again in June to cool things down and tackle inflation. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell did say that higher interest rates are putting pressure on households, but at least the labor market is still doing well. However, he did mention that the economy might face more difficulties from tighter credit conditions.

Are we slowing down?
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) only went up by 1.1% in the first quarter, mainly because of a decrease in inventory. There are also signs that consumer spending is weakening, with credit card spending down by 0.7% from last year according to Bank of America.

All in all, we’ll keep an eye on how things develop in the coming weeks…

Apple:
Apple announced their financial results for the second quarter of 2023!
They made a whopping $94.8 billion, which is down from last year but still pretty impressive. Tim Cook, the CEO, said they’re excited about breaking records for iPhone sales and their Services sector. Plus, they’re committed to being eco-friendly by 2030. The CFO, Luca Maestri, also shared that they’re returning $23 billion to shareholders and authorizing an extra $90 billion for stock repurchases.
Cha-ching! Shareholders will get a dividend of $0.24 per share on May 18th, and you can even watch the conference call on Apple’s website. So, who’s up for some apple pie to celebrate?