Bill Cheney Report Quotations

Next week's employment report will be a much more important piece of new information.

I think this report will lead the Fed to be much more aggressive than we would have expected a month ago. An inter-meeting cut seems far more likely now, and a cut at the May (policy makers) meeting seems all but certain.

The advance GDP report is a funny animal. It's a combination of data that's already out there combined with official guesses. There isn't a lot of real new news.

Today's employment report is just one month's report, but it's the one we've been waiting for, providing unambiguous good news about the labor market.

This is simply what a recession is like. This report represents real people and real pain, especially around the holidays.

It's too early to call a turn in the trend, so Alan Greenspan can't relax completely, but it's certainly the kind of report that will help him sleep better. There's still no sign of wage inflation and we seem to be heading for a soft landing: a smooth slowdown into sustainable non-inflationary growth.

If there is a danger, it is that the report isn't capturing creative and hidden ways employers are boosting wages. I'm sure Greenspan has a sneaking suspicion that these kinds of things are happening and that they may at some point provoke a burst of wage inflation.

I'd say there's only a 25 percent chance of a rate hike in June even. Even with another strong jobs report Friday, they'll want to have something that looks more definitely like a trend.