Market commentary

According to the ADP Employer Services payroll report, U.S. employers added 217,000 private jobs in February. Economists projected that the ADP report would show a 180,000 increase. According to the report, the largest area of job growth was in the service sector, which includes financial services. I think we can all agree the growth in service sector jobs was not a result of hiring in the mortgage space, where we saw the opposite. While the ADP report is generally not an accurate predictor of the government’s nonfarm payroll report, today’s ADP is roughly inline with expectations for what we should see form the Labor Department on Friday.

The markets, both stocks and bonds, remain focused on events in the Middle East and North Africa. Oil traded above $100/bbl on the New York exchange this morning, and gasoline futures rose above $3/gal. At these levels we can expect to see $4/gal gasoline (for the “cheap” stuff) within the next few days.

In his testimony to Congress Monday, Fed Chairman Bernanke told us recent spikes in energy and food prices should be short lived and not impact the nascent economic recovery. I often think these folks should live in the real world with us; folks who purchase our own gas and food. Every extra dollar I spend on these items reduces my discretionary spending---a conversation that took place at the dinner table last night with my two teenagers.

Bonds are slightly lower in price today, as are mortgage prices.