Husselbee said: “I still believe that on a relative basis the US is an expensive market compared to other equity markets, however the health of the US economy as the largest economy in the world, has a positive knock on effect so I think this is good news and helps to support the reflation trend.”
The statistics also showed the jobless rate fell from 4.8% to 4.7%.
Wage growth continued to tick upwards from 2.6% in January to 2.8% in February.
The announcement was more promising than commentators had predicted, and talk quickly turned to an imminent rate increase by the Federal Reserve, which could be confirmed this week.
Viktor Nossek, director of research at WisdomTree in Europe, said: “Combined with other recent positive news, the jobs data means there is now no reason for the federal reserve not to raise interest rates next week.
“What will determine the pace of the rate hikes is wage growth. Because this has been coming in fairly soft recently, we expect the rate hike cycle will progress at a slower pace.”
Still, US business and consumer confidence also surprised on the upside this week, leading Kames Capital’s multi-asset head Scott Jamieson to conclude US equities have farther to climb.
