Stocks Climb After Tepid Jobs Report But Meme Stock Frenzy Cools

Stocks rose Friday as traders evaluated a somewhat disappointing May jobs report, which suggested the Federal Reserve might be more hesitant to tighten ultra-easy monetary policy anytime soon, while Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies fell moderately.

Bitcoin fell 4.55% as of Friday 4 p.m. over the past 24 hours, one day after Elon Musk posted a tweet suggesting he was “breaking up” with the world’s biggest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is still up 27.3% year to date and has a market cap of almost $696 million.

Thomas Simons, economist at Jeffries wrote in a note that May payroll data came in “slightly weaker” than consensus expectations of 675,000. “In the context of last month's miss, the numbers today are not bad, but they are still pretty modest relative to how strong other indicators of economic growth have been,” he wrote. “The data is consistent with other indicators of a labor shortage that was already previously well understood and that should abate somewhat as the enhanced unemployment benefits programs continue to expire throughout the summer.” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, said in note that because the payrolls gain was “somewhat restrained,” the Federal Reserve should feel a “bit less urgency” about boosting interest rates. Meanwhile, the ongoing volatility among meme stocks like AMC has some analysts concerned. Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak, told CNBC on Friday  “some of these stocks that are trading far beyond any of their fundamentals, I think it’s going to be really rough,” adding that what’s going on right now “is simply just not healthy.” David Trainer, CEO of New Constructs, an investment research firm, stated earlier in the week there is “no fundamental reason” to be buying shares of AMC as it’s trading at levels that “entirely disconnected” from fundamentals, given its “weak earnings” and “mountain of debt.”









Source: Forbes
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