This week’s market data looked clean enough for Wall Street to celebrate, but the details underneath were not nearly as comforting.

The big story is the labor market. July payrolls came in negative, prior months were revised sharply lower, and more than 100,000 previously reported jobs disappeared in the revisions. That matters because the labor market has been one of the main pillars holding up the “soft landing” narrative.

Inflation also gave markets something to cheer about. CPI and PPI looked softer on the headline level, giving the Fed more room to talk about potential rate cuts. But everyday costs are still sticky where people actually feel them: energy, utilities, medical care, dining out, and key grocery staples.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why the July jobs report was worse than the headline suggests
• H ...