Latest Irish Life weekly markets update

Key talking points include:

• The US non-farm payrolls report was the big news last week. Job creation was lower than expected (though not terrible) at 73K created vs. 107K expected with healthcare and government the only sources of hiring.
• On the back of the weak report, the Trump administration announced the firing of the Chief of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) leading to concerns over the future impartiality of economic data releases.
• Global equities fell sharply on Friday following the jobs report. The S&P 500 ended last week down 2.3% whilst in Europe, the Stoxx 600 was off by 2.6%. On Monday, markets rebounded somewhat as investors moved on from the gloomy jobs report.