It's Wednesday, May 7th. I'm David Brancaccio, and here's some of what's happening in business and the world.
Economists like to see rises in productivity, because it suggests non-inflationary growth.
But investors were expecting a sharper spike upward, and didn't at all appreciate an accompanying bump up in unit labor costs, a measure of hourly compensation. Then a 10-year treasury bond auction didn't find many takers, and a survey of conditions at the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks showed a lot of economic strength, implying inflation. Michael Metz is the chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer and Company. Actually labor costs are going up, productivity disappointing and all this is a signal that the Fed is likely to move towards tightening money later this week. Of course you also have a little profit-taking, when you are on a big spike, so there was some motive to take some money off the table here.