“Hopefully now that the week is coming to a close, we’re seeing that the economy is still strong based on this jobs report, that people can take a breath and really reassess what is the economic environment that we’re going into in the year ahead.” — Lindsey Bell, chief markets and money strategist at Ally
“The January employment report was strong overall, informs us that businesses are willing to look through the Omicron shock (which is actually news), and reinforces the case for the Fed tightening.” — Gerard MacDonell, analyst at 22V Research
“It was always going to be a surprise as far as the payrolls report was concerned, given the range of outcomes. And we got a positive surprise … The Fed is further and further behind and they’re going to have to catch up.” — Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at iCapital
“The data reinforces the case for hikes and QT and I think the 10-year should rise more, especially real rates. With the 10-year getting close to 2%, I worry about mortgage-backed securities convexity hedging and more bond fund outflows.” — Priya Misra, global head of rates strategy at TD Securities
“A better-than-expected jobs report only fuels the Fed’s fire to raise rates, and act quickly. While they’ve already signaled that the labor market is in a good place, there was potential for omicron to derail that progress — and that just doesn’t seem to be the case. So with the market typically unwelcoming of news that could accelerate the pace of action from the Fed, we could see some volatility.” — Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley
