After a week of bloodbathery in labor market data, the 'big one' was a nothingburger of sorts relative to expectations - in fact more hawkish-leaning with record low black unemployment and prime-working-age participation rates back at pre-COVID levels.

As Academy Securities' Peter Tchir noted: 

This allows/forces the Fed to remain on the “hawkish” side of things:

• 3.5% unemployment is almost the lowest it has been since they started hiking, so the “jobs for inflation fighting” argument has not materialized.

• 0.3% wage growth is “only” 3.6% annualized (ignoring rounding), which is getting into the comfort zone, but not as good as last month’s number and this Fed is likely to want to beat down any re-emerging pressures.

You could probably craft a “Goldilocks” scenario around this data for markets, but equally compelling, especially around current positioning, you could craft a scenario that isn’t great for markets.

The 'relief' news sent rate-hike odds for May soaring above 70% (from a coin toss)...

Was embraced by equity futures (though only back to barely green on the day)...

Bond yields spiked initially but are fading back now with the short-end underperforming...

The dollar's kneejerk reaction was to spike higher but that is fading fast...

Gold is closed but bitcoin did nothing...

So now we wait for CPI...