The US economy continued on an upward trajectory based on the latest set of data released in April. Personal income and consumer spending for March grew at a faster rate than the market expected. The Labour market appears to be strengthening with non-farm payroll jobs increasing by 288,999 for April and the unemployment rate falling to 6.3% from 6.7%. However, this was driven by a material drop in the participation rate of 806,000 (down to 62.8%). Both the Markit and ISM manufacturing PMI indices, both measures of manufacturing activity, printed at solid levels. Conversely, GDP growth slowed over the first quarter of 2014 to 1.3%. This was likely due to adverse weather which appeared to be already priced in with little market movement when the data was released.
