ECB, an easing or just less restrictive?/Jobs data, including Challenger

The most noteworthy line in the ECB statement, “now appropriate to moderate the degree of restriction” and they are not “pre-committing to a particular rate path” which means that we don’t know yet when the next rate cut will be and don’t assume there will be another one in July. Also, they raised their 2024 and 2025 inflation estimates. All of this was meant to satisfy the hawks on the committee. Bond yields are higher in response and the euro is up too. US Treasury yields are moving up also in sympathy.

Initial jobless claims rose to 229k from 22k1 and that was 9k more than expected. As a 232k print dropped out, the 4 week average fell by 1k to 222k. Of note, continuing claims remained elevated at 1.792mm, up slightly w/o/w.