Good Monday AM,

I hope you had a fantastic Easter weekend.

Most of the world markets are still closed today (Easter Monday) but here in the US, we are wide open.

That is not to say there is much going on as there is no economic data released. Markets are still digesting last Friday’s jobs report, but the early bias is toward the Fed hiking one more time. With that bonds are on sale today with the 10-yr back at 3.42% and mortgage bonds are following their big brother. Wednesday is likely “the day” this week with CPI being reported. That will give the market updated intel to anticipate the next Fed announcement. Oddly, markets still see the same Fed Funds rate at the end of the year which means that if the Fed does raise in May, they will have to cut more aggressively in the second half of the year.

Not much else to share but I thought this piece from the WSJ was interesting.

Maybe we have turned the corner on population growth. I know that if we do not have population growth, we cannot have sustained economic growth. We either make babies or we open our borders…

The number of workers taking parental leave is exploding. In the 12 months through February, a monthly 406,000 workers were absent on average due to paid or unpaid parental leave, up 13.5% from 2021, according to Labor Department data. The 478,000 working parents absent in January was the most since records began in 1994. The main factor appears to be government and employer policies. While the U.S. remains the only advanced economy without nationally mandated paid parental leave, the share of workers with access to leave is growing, to 25% in March last year versus 19% in 2019. Fathers in particular are taking advantage of new laws and a changing workplace culture.

Please remain safe and stay healthy. Make today great.