Investors were quick to take profits in the US yesterday in response to a mixed set of economic data. Employment data was quite encouraging and showed that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefit reached a 15-year low. However, consumer spending and wage data were worse than expected, confirming our observation last month that despite having more money in their pockets, the US consumers are not necessarily spending it. However, this could be as a result of the bad weather in the first quarter which was also blamed for the weaker than expected 1st quarter GDP figure which came in at 0.2% compared to forecasts for 1% growth. There are other short term factors to consider and while stock markets have taken a cautionary step back, we do not expect the Federal Reserve to act on the one quarter of data which could rebound strongly in the second quarter.