10 September 2018
Bassanese Bites: Wage Worry – Week beginning: 10 September 2018
Global equities were on the defensive last week reflecting rising trade tensions and a higher than expected US wage outcome. Contrary to hopes, no US-Canada trade deal was announced and instead Trump ratcheted up the trade angst by threatening more tariffs on China and hinting his next focus could be Japan. Meanwhile, US payrolls on Friday revealed that annual growth in average hourly earnings hit 2.9%, contrary to a market expectation that it would remain steady at 2.7%. As seen in the chart below, annual growth in average earnings has displayed a volatile sawtooth pattern around a broadly steady trend in recent years, but it’s now again testing the top end of this range and a breakout (similar to that last evident in late 2015) could now be at hand.
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