Friday’s disappointing news for US payrolls in March — the smallest gain in more than a year — has launched a new debate about the economy’s strength. It’s premature to assume too much from the latest monthly change, in part because year-over-year growth in payrolls is still robust, as I discussed last week. Nonetheless, the crowd (and the Fed) will be considerably more sensitive to incoming data in the search for fresh clues about what, if anything, the latest payrolls numbers mean for adjusting the near-term outlook. One market-based measure that’s worthy of monitoring for this task: the  term-premium adjusted real (inflation-adjusted) yield for the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note.
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