Reaction to Jobs Data Points to Warming Sentiment

Last week's November US jobs report gave pundits plenty of reasons to cheer. Employers hired at the fastest clip since January, and the unemployment rate fell to a 50-year low. While employment numbers are late-lagging indicators, they confirm what forward-looking markets have long since priced in: The US expansion is chugging along. Yet the reaction wasn't universally positive, as some nitpicked at measures like the labor force participation rate and its implications for future growth. That pundits are still poring over a long-running false fear suggests sentiment is rationally warming up to the US's solid economic picture—but isn't overdoing it. All perfectly normal, in our view, in a later-stage bull market.