Here’s why investors were happy with Friday’s US employment data

The US economy added 850,000 jobs in June, beating expectations. John Stepek breaks down why inflation expectations fell after the report despite the healthy reading.

Woman walking in front of a shop in the US
The US added 850,000 jobs in June beating expectations.
(Image credit: © Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Markets are in a quandary.

Investors want the recovery to be real. If the economy doesn't improve then corporate profits won't rise and valuations will be hard to justify.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.