Monday morning bullet points

*  While the employment report was generally poor (including a horror show household figure that was the worst since December 2009, excluding the government shutdown), there was still a nugget of light or two.  Macro Man was particularly interested to see another uptick in manufacturing wage growth, which has now pushed above 3% y/y.   Readers are invited to speculate for themselves what this might imply for corporate profits and/or inflation.

*  The news was not particularly rosy in China, either.  Although the trade surplus was some $5 bio higher than expected in April, it was driven largely by much weaker than expected imports, which dropped nearly 11% y/y.  Given that steel rebar and iron ore prices have shown signs of topping recently, the recent weakness in the commodity complex could well just be a case of 'reality bites".

* One exception, of course, may be oil.   Not only has the inferno in Canada knocked out a considerable portion of the oil sands production, perhaps for some time, but many readers will have seen that Saudi Arabia has replaced its oil minister.  Although most reports suggest that new minister Khaled-el-Falih will continue the Kingdom's strategy of the past year or two, change nevertheless brings uncertainty...and in any event, any change in policy could hardly be more bearish oil, could it?   Anyhow, oil vs copper on a beta-adjusted basis is starting to look quite perky, and could be an interesting way of fading the China commodity orgy while capturing the improved supply/demand dynamic in crude...

* Score one for the neo-Fisherians.   The head of Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, has granted an interview with Bloomberg where he blames easy monetary conditions for preventing necessary consolidation in the industry, thus depressing prices.  One would assume the various members of the PhD community within policy-making circles would simply suggest that he is using the wrong model.  Needless to say, it's easy to see where his views come from:

  Macro Man can envisage a discussion between the two sides unfolding something like this:



* Finally, if you have the sorts of debates with your kids that Macro Man does- namely, that music back in the good old days was much better than the over-produced rubbish favoured by today's yoof- then this is an invaluable resource in proving your point.   Actually, even if you don't have these arguments, it's fun to spend a few minutes and see how popular music has evolved over the past sixty years or so.  (H/T @AlenMattich.)