I am once again taking the Under on the Economist’s consensus of 185,000 increase in payroll jobs. I still believe the April data was an outlier.
A weak number plays right into the camp that the Fed should finish tightening soon. A strong number might be more perplexing, as it supports the "Soft Patch" argument, but counters the "Fed needs to stop" crowd.
My wildly unscientific seat-of-the-pants guess is for 137,000 new jobs.
