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2 days ago | think.ing.com | James Knightley

139K US nonfarm payrolls Respectable jobs data for May The May US jobs report shows nonfarm payrolls rising 139k versus the 126k consensus and April's print of 147k. April was initially reported as 177k, and together with adjustments to March's numbers, we get a net 95k of downward revisions to the previous two months of jobs data.

2 days ago | think.ing.com | James Smith |James Knightley |Adam Antoniak |Peter Virovacz

Is that your final answer? This week, we aired our very own version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”. Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite called that. Mainly because we didn’t have a million pounds to give away (maybe next time, ING bosses?). But our central bank webinar did have “50:50”, which, in case you hadn’t realised, is how we economists forecast virtually everything. And it even had a phone-a-friend. Well, it had Carsten Brzeski and James Knightley. And they were both on the phone.

3 days ago | think.ing.com | James Knightley |Carsten Brzeski |Chris Turner |James Smith

The Trump administration appears to be powering through on its promise to impose sweeping tariff measures despite recent court rulings contesting their legality, but the form they’re set to take remains deeply unclear. How these developments will feed through into the global economy is yet to be determined, but what we do know is that the uncertainty is taking a toll on consumer and business sentiment, fuelling market volatility, and complicating the work of central bankers.

4 days ago | think.ing.com | Ewa Manthey

President Trump hopes the increased levies on aluminium will protect margins for domestic mills and spur investment in new production capacity. The tariffs will not apply to imports from the UK, which will remain at 25%, to allow for negotiations on new tariffs or quotas by the 9 July deadline. The doubling of tariffs has come after a federal court struck down some of Trump’s other duties, which were put in place under an emergency law. His tariffs on metals were not subject to that ruling.

4 days ago | think.ing.com | James Knightley

United States Very weak ISM service sector data and a soft jobs number from the ADP indicate that the corporate sector remains concerned about the economic environment despite the recent de-escalation in some of the trade tensions.