The US dollar is narrowing mixed as the employment data, and Fed speeches are awaited. Six Fed officials speak today, including Yellen and Fischer. Regional Presidents Williams, Rosengren Evans and Bullard also speak. It will be the first flurry of speeches since the FOMC meeting. 

The market's take away from the FOMC statement that was little changed was the characterization of soft Q1 growth as being driven by transitory factors. The odds of a June rate hike were marked up, even if not to the level of near-certainty that of Bloomberg's calculation. 

The April employment report is expected to recover from the weather-induced slowed down in March. However, the PMI and ISM were not particularly encouraging, though weekly jobless claims are supportive. Of note, Linkedin reported earlier this week that its jobs report showed April was the strongest month for hiring since June 201, yet it noted narrow breadth: three sectors — manufacturing; aerospace, automotive and transport; and software — were responsible while the other 10 industries showed slower job growth. Anything above 187k non-farm payroll growth, which was last year's average must be considered reasonably good given the maturing of the expansion.  

Earnings growth needs to be 0.3% to keep the year-over-year rate at 2.7%, which while unimpressive historically, is near the cyclical high.  Ideally, the underemployment rate continues its downward course. It fell to 8.9% in March from 9.2% in February. Last April it stood at 9.7%, which bears out the Fed's point that there was still cyclical slack in the labor market; that it was not all structural   

There are two other impulses today. The first is politics. Early results of the UK local elections indicate, as expected, a strong showing for the Tory Party. They appear to be gaining seats against all the other parties. One early takeaway is that UKIP voters are joining the Tory ranks. That the Tories are doing well is hardly surprising.